The average Armenian citizen spends most of his money on food and it’s assumed that he pays less in the summer than in the winter.
There’s no doubt that vegetables should be cheaper during the summer. The average Armenian citizen waits impatiently for the summer with the hope that he will spend less money. But the past couple of years have proved that this is not the case in Armenia.
Something happens every year-hail, heavy downpours or dryness. Citizens and villagers lose hope that they will be able to buy vegetables at low prices. It’s obvious that there is less supply and prices go up; in addition, the current reforms in the field of agriculture.
So, vegetable prices are rather high in the summer and sometimes it’s just illogical. The citizen hopes to buy one kilogram of tomatoes for at least 100-150 AMD, as well as apricots, potatoes and cucumbers. However, prices for these products are primarily triple and in rare cases double the amount (350-450 AMD or one dollar).
During the summer, the average Armenian family must consume one kilogram of tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, eggplants, beans, apricots and, let’s say, peas. So, it turns out that the average family will spend a minimum of seven dollars or nearly 3,000 AMD at the market each day. At first sight, this may not sound like a lot, but where does the Armenian family get that much money from when there is only one person in the family working and getting “Armenia’s salary”?
In any case, Armenian housewives go to the market and buy two-three kilograms of each product instead of the required amount. They start “moaning and groaning” to the seller while at the market and say: “What kind of price is this?” The seller saves himself and says to the consumer: “Do you have any other price?” The consumer doesn’t risk bargaining, buys the products and leaves the market cursing at the seller and the whole world.
The consumer thinks that villagers fix the prices on vegetables. But if you go deeper into the issue, you see that the villager simply grows the crop. The rest is up to the “ones in charge of the market”. Everyone knows that the villager doesn’t sell his product in the city market and resellers don’t even let him in some cases. He brings his tomatoes and potatoes to the market, sells a “big load” to the seller and finishes his part of the job. The reseller then sells his load to other resellers and then the products make it to the small market. So, vegetable prices go up as the villager sells the products to the seller and then the reseller. Supposedly, the three get the same amount of profit. The market owners also get the same amount by charging the villager, the wholesale seller and small market seller. That’s why vegetable prices are so high. But that’s not all.
When apricot exports increased, the “ones in charge of the market” realized that they could make huge profits. They even prohibited Georgian exporters to enter the Armenian villager’s fields. Georgians were selling apricots at a higher price than Armenian exporters. Armenians didn’t like this competition because first, there was an unlimited amount of apricots being exported and they paid villagers how much they wanted by not letting Georgians enter. This helped Armenians realize that apricot and pea exports are turning into a serious business. Armenia now has a fruit export monopoly. Citizens of the Armavir region of Armenia say that apricot export is controlled by Minister of Territorial Management Hovik Abrahamyan and that he literally supervises the apricot fields. Farmers say that Abrahamyan’s workers buy the apricot crops before the harvest and that he hires guards to keep an eye on the fields so that the crops won’t be sold at a high price to Georgians and others. The apricots sold in the market belong to the third type and the best are exported.
There is an explanation for the high vegetable prices. First of all, the tomatoes and cucumbers aren’t ripe yet and when they do get ripe, it’s assumed that the prices go down. However, the fixed prices are just phony. Besides the resellers, we have even bigger people “in charge of the market”. The “marketing experts” told “168 Hours” that when the Armenian government prohibited the import of Turkish products in the spring, this also hurt agriculture. Georgian and Turkish vegetables haven’t been imported to Armenia for a couple of months now and that has had a negative influence on Armenia’s agriculture. The “marketing experts” tell us that the former Chairman of the National Assembly Arthur Baghdasaryan and some high-rank officials at the National Security Service (NSS) play their role in fixing the prices. The ones with the most information say that A. Baghdasaryan has a greenhouse in Zoraghbyur where he grows tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. The same goes for the NSS workers. Their crop is sold in the market now and villagers and resellers have to play according to their rules. So, consumers really shouldn’t blame the “developed” villager for the high prices for tomatoes, cucumbers, apricots and other products.