Low production in Ecuador worsens the price of onion

Eight months ago, a maximum pound of red onion cost 0.30 dollars, now in certain stores in Guayaquil, that value today is between 1 and 1.25 dollars. So far this year, the cost has risen three times: in January a bag was priced at $14, from there it went up to $25; then, last June, it reached 70 dollars and now, in the first days of August, that value reaches up to 90 dollars. The merchants of the wholesale market in Montebello, in Guayaquil, such as Héctor Lema, explained to Diario EXPRESO that due to the weather there is not enough national onion and the one that comes from Peru is expensive. “In my case, I have bought the jacket, wholesale, at 88 dollars; So to earn something I sell it at 89 dollars. We are not speculating, food is expensive,” Lema specified last Wednesday night, in the middle of an operation by the National Police Department, which seeks to stop the price increase. However, from the field it is believed that the latter could be impossible, because the origin ...