Rouhani Attacked For Surge in Tomato Prices

The following piece was written by an Iranian citizen journalist on the ground inside the country, who writes under a pseudonym to protect his identity.

Throwing rotten tomatoes as a sign of disapproval is a longstanding tradition. But with tomato prices in Iran skyrocketing this season, Iranians need to think twice about doing it. A vegetable that was selling for 30 to 60 cents a kilo this summer now cost near to four dollars a kilo, due to a combination of uncharacteristically cold weather and produce from the warmer south having yet to reach the market.

The media, depending on their political stance, have reported the news in different ways. Some have suggested that the market needs to be regulated with price controls, while opponents of the Rouhani government are using it as an opportunity to attack him.

The daily publication Vatan-e Emrouz, managed by Mehrdad Bazrpash — a member of parliament and an ally of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — is an example of the latter. Under its front-page headline entitled “The Tomato Red Alert,” it said that “In many parts of the world tomatoes are thrown at politicians’ heads and faces but here, officials are so immersed in politics —and only politics, domestic or foreign — that the price of a tomato has become a bat hitting people across the head.”

A reader, commenting on a copy of the article that had been re-published on a website allied to Ahmadinejad, fired back, stating, “it is very wrong to use the same immoral tactics that Ahmadinejad’s enemies used against him. The price of tomatoes is not the government’s fault. Is the government a feudal lord that can order what gets planted, where to sell them, whom to and at what price?”

This is not the first time that tomato prices have become a political issue. In 2006, during Ahmadinejad’s second year as president, tomato prices unexpectedly shot up and both the media and parliament began discussing it.

At the time, Ahmadinejad was presenting his budget for the following year in parliament when hardliner lawmakers began criticizing him for the price of tomatoes, which had reached more than a dollar per kilo. His response was to suggest that they shop in his own neighborhood for tomatoes, where they cost just a third of the one-dollar price – an answer that gave way to much ridicule for some time.

Although politicians are treating this as an astonishing occurrence, it is apparent that the hike in price is following a recurring pattern. According to Hossein Mohajerani, the president of the Green Grocers Union, the short supply of tomatoes this year are a consequence of both the drought and the delay in delivering tomatoes from the south of Iran. “Every year that the city storehouses run out of tomatoes the price goes up by two or three-fold,” he told the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). “This year it’s even higher because of the delay.” However, he predicts that when the southern tomatoes arrive, the price will drop back down to approximately 55 cents.

Middlemen and the Cold

The president of the Union for Vegetable and Fruit Growers believes it is the middlemen and the cold weather that are to blame for the current crisis, something with which green grocers in Tehran agree.

“We have no shortage or problems in growing tomatoes to satisfy domestic needs,” said Razi Nouri, a member of the parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Water and Natural Resources. Though he adds that because farmers are not given a fixed price for their produce before harvest time, a lot of farm products, such as tomatoes, potatoes and onions, remain in the ground because farmers do not possess the financial capabilities to distribute them themselves. “With the right planning and by providing necessary facilities like storehouses and cold houses, the price of tomatoes wouldn’t go higher than 50 cents.”

One of the main pledges in Rouhani’s electoral platform was to control inflation, especially with regards to items that are consumed on a daily basis. While the government has had some successes, statistics published by the Iranian Central Bank show that the price of fresh produce has risen by more than 37 percent since last year and that the price of tomatoes has gone up by 109 percent.

On March 21, the start of this year’s Iranian calendar, the government promised to stabilize the prices of eight categories of basic necessities. Government officials are claiming they have stopped inflation in these categories and that the items with higher prices have resulted from secondary factors like delivery delays or price swindling.

Whatever the reality, the Rouhani administration controls a vast proportion of the economy and therefore, when the price of a highly popular staple, like the tomato, runs amok, many people view it as the government failing to follow through on its promises. In the long run, this could prove disastrous for the president’s popularity at home. At a time when elections are just around the corner, it would be wise to reverse this latest trend.

By Marjan Mafi, Citizen Journalist, Lavasan (Tehran)