Local dried fruits difficult to sell in Kurdistan Region

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Fruit prices plummeted considerably during the summer harvest season in the Kurdistan Region, so much so that the price of harvesting the fruits and transporting them to wholesale markets sometimes outweighs their sale price. 

In the past, farmers used to dry these fruits and sell them that way to make a profit.

But nowadays, 95 percent of the dried fruit available in Kurdistan Region markets is imported, and this has discouraged local farmers from drying their fruits to avoid financial loss during the harvest season.

In an attempt to protect local products, most countries practice three systems. Some countries determine the amount of food or fruit they need and the amount they can locally produce every year. They then permit imports of these products on a need basis.

Other countries levy customs fees on foreign products so that local products can compete with them. And some countries support local farmers and thereby oblige factories to buy local products.

But none of these mechanisms is practiced in the Kurdistan Region. Rather, free market policy is considered in importing dried fruits. And this policy has cost locally-produced dried fruits in the Kurdistan Region. That is why very few farmers currently dry their products.

“In the past, dried fruits like figs, apricots, raisins, polar berries, blackberries, and many other products were abounding in the market,” Haji Wushiar Ali, a shopkeeper who has been selling nuts and dried fruits for 40 years, told Rudaw. “But farmers haven’t been able to benefit from technology to continue drying their fruits because of the lack of support from the Ministry of Agriculture.”

“That is why less than 5 percent of dried fruits in the Kurdistan Region are locally produced.”

Ali said local dried fruits like apricots and figs would be in high demand in the Kurdistan Region markets if produced in a contemporary way.

“Locally-produced dried fruits cannot compete with imported products because local fruits are dried in a non-scientific way by putting them in the sun to be dried,” he said. “This way, the dried fruits will turn out to be hard and back.”

Ali has 11 different kinds of dried fruit in his shop, of which only two, polar berries and raisins, were locally-produced.

“We import made-in-Thailand dried fruits like melons, apples, coconuts, pineapples, and ginger from the United Arab Emirates (UAE),” Ali said. “Moreover, we import dried apricots from Turkey, dried figs from Iran, Syria and Turkey, and raisins from Uzbekistan.”

In the Kurdistan Region, there is high demand for dried fruits like apricots, raisons, and figs. This has made the dried fruit market competitive among traders who each try to import different kinds of dried fruits. 

Traders import dried apricots and raisins from Turkey, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Chile. They import dried figs mainly from Turkey and Syria. They import other dried fruits which are mainly produced by Thailand from United Arab Emirates.

Ibrahim Zakaria is a Kurdish trader who imports dried fruits worth more than $4 million annually. 

“We import 1,700 to 2,000 tons of apricots from the Turkish city of Malatya every year. Last year, we sold nearly 3,700 tons of imported apricots,” he told Rudaw. “We sold nearly 450 tons of these apricots in Kurdistan and imported the rest to Iraqi and Syrian cities.”

Zakaria said he annually imports 1,500 to 2,000 tons of dried figs from the Turkish city of Izmir, selling nearly 400 tons in the Kurdistan Region and sending the rest to Iraqi cities. He imports nearly 350 tons of raisins from Uzbekistan and nearly 150 tons of dried plums from Turkey and Iran.

Zakaria said he no longer buys dried apricots from farmers because of them not having production and expiry dates on them.

“There is very little supply of apricots in the market because no one dares to buy them because of the health committee. There are no factories in Kurdistan to buy products from farmers and then stick production and expiry labels on them,” he said. “And the health committee confiscates any product that doesn’t have such a label on it and fines the seller.”

Dried apricots from Iran and Uzbekistan are popular in Sulaimani and Turkish ones are popular in Erbil and Duhok.

Hashim Jaafar is one such trader from Erbil who imports dried apricots and raisins from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. 

“Apricots and raisons are especially on high demand on occasions. Annually, we import 200 to 300 tons of apricots from Tajikistan and nearly 25 tons of raisons from Uzbekistan,” he told Rudaw. “I have imported 72 tons of apricot for the Eid al-Adha alone.”

The Ministry of Agriculture will look into tariffs to help Kurdistan Region-produced dried fruits, according to one official.

“From now on, we will investigate this subject more and design a plan to develop this area,” Hussein Hamakarim told Rudaw. “(We) will levy tariffs on imported dried fruits whenever local products increase.”

Translated by Salim Ibrahim