Citizens of Armenia say that not only is there a difference in the taste of the sausage produced in the Soviet era, but also vegetables.
When the first harvesting of crops begins and the first cucumbers, tomatoes and strawberries come to the market, people start to complain about the quality. Housewives, especially old women, keep complaining that they don’t like the taste of tomatoes and strawberries today. No matter how much the seller convinces the consumer that his product is fresh and high in quality, he can’t fool Armenian housewives. They know the taste. They are right because after the declaration of independence, new fertilizers entered Armenia as humanitarian aid at first.
Armenian villagers used to get the nicely sealed packets with the picture of the crop on the box instead of the bad looking ones. They quickly made use of it, sowed the seeds, cultivated for four to five months, but they were left without any crops in the fall. In the best-case scenario, they would have a lot of harvest but low-quality crop. That’s what happened to Armenia’s tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries and other fruits and vegetables.
“We used to love the smell of the strawberries, even before they were sold at the market. Now we don’t smell anything at all,” says one woman doing the shopping for her home.
The same goes for tomatoes. The bright red and appetizing tomatoes are like that from the outside, but are white and hard on the inside and that’s why there is no taste. The foreign fertilizers brought to Armenia are the reason for this. The advantage is big harvest, but low-quality. The strawberry seller at the market assures that the local fertilizers don’t bring good harvest and that’s why they don’t sow them. Besides, the local products don’t sell well no matter how good they are.
“The strawberries imported from abroad are large and hard. Our customers like that. They don’t want to buy the small, local strawberries. We harvest what they buy. Armenian fertilizers bring fewer crops and that’s bad for us. The foreign fertilizers give two-three times more,” says the strawberry seller.
It’s wrong to say that there are no types of Armenian fertilizers. It’s just that the consumer has a hard time differentiating. Local kinds are not harvested that much and are sold at high prices. This is something that the consumer should think about. In general the market, especially the Armenian market, needs good and bad qualities.
“The market decides the demand. Today, there is a higher demand for cheap and low-quality products, than the expensive and high-quality ones. The majority of Armenian citizens have low living standards and it is much better to buy the tomato for 100 AMD rather than 200 for making conserves. That’s why there are low-quality vegetables in the market,” says head of the botany department of the Ministry of Agriculture Garnik Petrosyan.
In general, throughout the years, nobody has really paid any attention to the fertilizer market in Armenia and everything has been imported. There hasn’t been any control. Many Armenian farmers trust the American and French brand names, sow the seeds and don’t get any crop.
During the Soviet era, Armenia had storage for fertilizers just like the rest of the Soviet countries. That storage ceased to exist after the declaration of Armenia’s independence. At the time, it was accepted to keep 20% of the fertilizer for emergency situations. In case a disaster takes place and farmers don’t have any harvest for the given crop, they would be able to use the fertilizers from the storage. According to specialists, the fertilizer storage was in some way important for national security. As for Garnik Petrosyan, he believes that there is no need for storing fertilizers.
“First of all, we need a lot of money for that. Secondly, if we have any problems with one of the fertilizers, we can take care of everything thanks to our contacts with the rest of the world,” says Petrosyan.
The government, along with the Ministry of Agriculture, has finally decided to control this field. In 2005, the government passed the “Law about Fertilizers” and then the resolutions for that. At the end of last year, the “Fertilizer Agency” non-trade state organization was founded. Each businessman importing fertilizers is required to get a license from this agency and then sell the fertilizer; otherwise he will be brought to justice. The agency first conducts an experiment on the fertilizer and then it moves on the second stage. The agency or importer will sow the fertilizer for two years to see how much crop he gets. If that fertilizer works on Armenian soil, then the government will permit registration.
Besides the imported fertilizers, the fertilizers produced and sold in Armenia must be licensed. G. Petrosyan advises villagers to demand a document when buying the fertilizer so that they can bring the seller to justice in case of need later on. Of course, it is hard to teach Armenian villagers to get involved in bureaucracy along with sowing the seeds, especially since that won’t really benefit the people selling the fertilizer and the businessmen afraid of paying taxes. But according to specialists, things will change over time.
“After a couple of years, you will no longer see unlicensed fertilizers in the market. Both the person buying the fertilizer and the seller must understand that this is in their interests,” says director of the “Fertilizer Agency” Armen Vartanyan.
True, regulating and controlling the field is a good thing. But Armenia hasn’t been successful in doing this in the past-regulating and controlling any given field hasn’t ended in itself. The goal has always been to centralize the market and have it controlled by some players, especially since most Armenian MPs and state officials are active in the field of agriculture. Some agriculture ministry officials are also involved and they will surely feel the desire to allow some privileged businessmen to trade fertilizers. Specialists think that it’s quite possible to see a decrease in the number of businessmen involved in selling fertilizers, however they assure that they are going to do their best to make sure nothing happens to the market.