Iranian onions – an unexpected yardstick for US sanctions?

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – US sanctions on Iran and devastating floods have led to an eye-watering spike in the price of kitchen essentials, including the humble onion. Tehran’s solution: ban the export of onions to neighboring countries. 

In a country which flavors many of its most popular dishes with onion, a hike in the price of this culinary staple has caused genuine outcry. 

“For the first time this lunchtime I watched the amount of onion I was consuming in a day,” one resident from the city of Mariwan told Rudaw via telephone on Saturday.

“The price of one kilo of onions has gone up from around 4,000 toman before Newroz (March 21) to 14,000 now,” he said. 

“That is almost one third of a laborer’s wage.”

Since US President Donald Trump announced the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in May last year, the Iranian currency has lost more than 60 percent of its value, sending consumer prices skyrocketing.

Authorities say the spike in the price of onions and other root vegetables in particular was caused by flash flooding, which has inundated vast areas of farmland and killed dozens of people in recent days. 

Roads in several agricultural regions have been flooded preventing farmers from bringing their produce to market. 

Another contributing factor is exporters and smugglers taking advantage of the fluctuating price to bring cheap goods into neighboring Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, one Iranian official said. 

In the hope of calming commodity prices, Iran announced on Saturday it would halt the export of onions and potatoes to neighboring countries as of April.  

And officials are taking the illicit trade in onions very seriously.

“A cargo of illegal dry onion was confiscated on Friday, which was over 10 tons, after a tip-off from a member of the public,” Farzad Sardarzadeh, head of inspection at the Kurdistan province trade and industry department, told state news agency IRNA. 

As Washington’s sanctions bite, the government of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has taken several preventative steps to help regulate the market and ease the suffering of its citizens. 

However, it is struggling to keep pace with ever-rising prices. According to state media, the government set the price of poultry at 11,500 toman per kilo in Tehran, yet the price has already risen to more than 17,000 toman. 

Onions are well known for bringing a tear to the eye. But the re-imposition of US sanctions last November and the resulting economic chaos may well give Rouhani something to really cry about. 

The sanctions have widened the schism between Rouhani’s administration and Iran’s hardliners, including the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). 

The IRGC regularly accuses Rouhani of weakness in the face of US pressure. Now it says the government has failed to plan adequately to address the flooding. 

Thousands of guards were deployed to affected areas. Rouhani’s government accused its opponents of using the disaster for political gain.