and exporter, Shandong, China
----
NEARLY THE whole world, not just Don Christopher, is angry about Chinese garlic and the way it’s been marketed and exported—or dumped, to be blunt. And some countries aren’t going to take it anymore. They’ve been fighting back with huge tariffs or fines, plus jail sentences for garlic smuggling. Yes, cheap Chinese garlic is such a prized commodity in some places that it’s smuggled across borders disguised as onions or other produce. But the big issue in North America over the past decade has been dumping, and it’s forced many garlic growers to reduce production, like Don Christopher, or to go out of business entirely.
In the United States, the first wave of Chinese garlic appeared in the mid-1990s, at half the cost of California garlic. The Chinese were found to be selling it at less than their cost—which, given their workers’ subsistence wages plus the inexpensive containers used to ship goods, is ridiculously low to begin with. The United States levied a hefty 377 percent tariff on the garlic, the highest imposed on any product crossing its borders. It slowed down imports for a few years, but the Chinese claimed they weren’t dumping and filed for a review of the charges, leading to a lengthy hearing.
Then a loophole in the regulations was discovered, and Chinese garlic began to make its way back into California and other American ports. Imports increased tenfold in three years in the mid-2000s, to 86 million pounds (39 million kilos) by 2005, 5 million pounds (2.3 million kilos) more garlic than was grown in California and up from a meager 365,000 pounds (166,000 kilos) in 2000. The industry was shrinking in California: from 1999 to 2004, the number of acres devoted to growing garlic dropped from 40,000 to 26,000 (from 16,000 to 10,000 hectares), and some growers said they were making no profit at all.
Lawyers for the American garlic industry defending the tariff argued that the Chinese wanted to corner the U.S. market, and the Chinese were accused of using fraudulent schemes to avoid paying customs duties, such as shipping through countries like Vietnam and Japan and falsifying the true country of origin. “The system is not set up to deal with the degree of creativity the Chinese bring to the market,” one lawyer for the California producers told a reporter for SFGate.com.
In Canada, the situation was, and is, similar. “In 2001, China began dumping garlic on the Ontario market for about 40 cents a pound [88 cents a kilo] wholesale. A grower here needed $1.50 to make it viable,” says Mark Wales, president of the Garlic Growers Association of Ontario. “I call that predatory dumping.” He, too, thinks the Chinese want to take over the garlic industry.
Canadian garlic had its start as an industry in the late 1980s, when farmers planted garlic and ginseng as alternatives to the once-lucrative tobacco crops. It takes a few years to establish a good supply of garlic because it’s grown not from seed, as are other vegetables, but from the six to twelve cloves each plant produces, resulting in six to twelve plants—a lot less than the hundreds of plants possible from the seeds of a beet or a carrot. It takes years for a garlic crop to become large enough to supply the market. By 2000, 3,500 to 4,000 acres (1,400 to 1,600 hectares) of garlic were being grown commercially in Ontario (which grows 95 percent of Canada’s garlic). Then the Chinese invaded. Canadian garlic wasn’t worth the cost of harvesting.
“The crop size dropped to about 400 acres in one season,” Mark says. Within two years it was down to 200, or about 80 hectares. “Our association was successful in getting a five-year tariff of about 80 cents a pound [$1.75 a kilo] levied on the garlic. That brought the Chinese wholesale price up to about $1.25, the same as garlic from Mexico. There was no garlic from China anymore, but all of a sudden 11 million kilos”—24 million pounds—“the same
----
NEARLY THE whole world, not just Don Christopher, is angry about Chinese garlic and the way it’s been marketed and exported—or dumped, to be blunt. And some countries aren’t going to take it anymore. They’ve been fighting back with huge tariffs or fines, plus jail sentences for garlic smuggling. Yes, cheap Chinese garlic is such a prized commodity in some places that it’s smuggled across borders disguised as onions or other produce. But the big issue in North America over the past decade has been dumping, and it’s forced many garlic growers to reduce production, like Don Christopher, or to go out of business entirely.
In the United States, the first wave of Chinese garlic appeared in the mid-1990s, at half the cost of California garlic. The Chinese were found to be selling it at less than their cost—which, given their workers’ subsistence wages plus the inexpensive containers used to ship goods, is ridiculously low to begin with. The United States levied a hefty 377 percent tariff on the garlic, the highest imposed on any product crossing its borders. It slowed down imports for a few years, but the Chinese claimed they weren’t dumping and filed for a review of the charges, leading to a lengthy hearing.
Then a loophole in the regulations was discovered, and Chinese garlic began to make its way back into California and other American ports. Imports increased tenfold in three years in the mid-2000s, to 86 million pounds (39 million kilos) by 2005, 5 million pounds (2.3 million kilos) more garlic than was grown in California and up from a meager 365,000 pounds (166,000 kilos) in 2000. The industry was shrinking in California: from 1999 to 2004, the number of acres devoted to growing garlic dropped from 40,000 to 26,000 (from 16,000 to 10,000 hectares), and some growers said they were making no profit at all.
Lawyers for the American garlic industry defending the tariff argued that the Chinese wanted to corner the U.S. market, and the Chinese were accused of using fraudulent schemes to avoid paying customs duties, such as shipping through countries like Vietnam and Japan and falsifying the true country of origin. “The system is not set up to deal with the degree of creativity the Chinese bring to the market,” one lawyer for the California producers told a reporter for SFGate.com.
In Canada, the situation was, and is, similar. “In 2001, China began dumping garlic on the Ontario market for about 40 cents a pound [88 cents a kilo] wholesale. A grower here needed $1.50 to make it viable,” says Mark Wales, president of the Garlic Growers Association of Ontario. “I call that predatory dumping.” He, too, thinks the Chinese want to take over the garlic industry.
Canadian garlic had its start as an industry in the late 1980s, when farmers planted garlic and ginseng as alternatives to the once-lucrative tobacco crops. It takes a few years to establish a good supply of garlic because it’s grown not from seed, as are other vegetables, but from the six to twelve cloves each plant produces, resulting in six to twelve plants—a lot less than the hundreds of plants possible from the seeds of a beet or a carrot. It takes years for a garlic crop to become large enough to supply the market. By 2000, 3,500 to 4,000 acres (1,400 to 1,600 hectares) of garlic were being grown commercially in Ontario (which grows 95 percent of Canada’s garlic). Then the Chinese invaded. Canadian garlic wasn’t worth the cost of harvesting.
“The crop size dropped to about 400 acres in one season,” Mark says. Within two years it was down to 200, or about 80 hectares. “Our association was successful in getting a five-year tariff of about 80 cents a pound [$1.75 a kilo] levied on the garlic. That brought the Chinese wholesale price up to about $1.25, the same as garlic from Mexico. There was no garlic from China anymore, but all of a sudden 11 million kilos”—24 million pounds—“the same
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