as had come from China, was coming in from Pakistan and the Philippines, countries that had never shipped garlic to Canada before.” Although the invoices said the products were from those countries, in many cases the original labels were still on the box: “Product of China.”
The tariff expired in 2007, and it wasn’t renewed, at least in part because the garlic growers felt the government hadn’t been vigilant in enforcing the rules when it was obvious that the Pakistani and Filipino garlic originated in China. The shame of it is that domestic garlic was on the brink of commercial success in 2001. Warren Ham, director of anti-dumping for the Garlic Growers Association of Ontario and a grower himself, says the industry was robust enough to supply all the garlic the market needed; it might even have built a climate-controlled warehouse, like the one at Christopher Ranch, so that supplies could be available nearly year-round.
“But it’s not as if we can’t get back there again,” he says. “We have a choice: we could put our garlic back in the ground and wrap up production for five years down the road till we can supply bigger crops.” Or garlic could continue to be what it’s become: a cottage industry, marketed at fairs and farmers’ markets and via mail order. But if growers decide to invest in the future by propagating their crops of garlic for a few years, they need to find another way to earn enough income to support their families in the meantime.
Like most consumers, I had little idea of the effect Chinese garlic had had on growers; I was more consumed by the effect it had on me. How many times have I exchanged complaints with fellow shoppers over bins of those Asian bulbs, deploring the small size that makes the tiny inner cloves hardly worth the effort it takes to peel them, or the little green shoots that mean the garlic is past its prime, or the squishy feeling under the papery skin that means it’s advanced to the point of death? But the garlic effect goes further than the grocery store and mild complaints between shoppers, and it’s arguably bigger than the problems American and Canadian growers are experiencing. It’s also started trade wars and has caused political conflict in other countries.
In Thailand in 2008 the price of garlic dropped from 40 baht to about 17 baht per kilo (from 60 cents to 25 cents per pound)—less than it cost to grow it—and created hardship for many less-than-affluent growers. The culprit was Chinese garlic, huge amounts of which were allowed into the country under a trade agreement. The government’s solution was to encourage the cultivation of potatoes, which were relatively inexpensive to grow. But where were they to be sold? Potatoes aren’t a big part of the Thai diet, and what market there was demanded only perfectly uniform potatoes in pristine condition.
Farmers protested. Garlic became part of an overall political issue as garlic growers joined truck drivers, rice farmers, and fishermen, all wanting assistance in fighting inflation. Samak Sundaravej, who was prime minister of Thailand for a few months in 2008 and considered himself a gourmand (he was known for his pork marinated in Coca-Cola), tried to alleviate the garlic situation. In one of his Sunday addresses to the country he praised the virtues of the beautifully flavorful and much stronger Thai garlic and urged citizens to use it. But the prime minister spoke out of both sides of his mouth. At about the same time an existing highway through Laos from Kunming, China, to Bangkok was being refurbished to cut the driving time of trucks bringing garlic and other fruits and vegetables from China to Thailand.
In Korea, a trade war over garlic erupted in 2000. Koreans were angry about cheap Chinese garlic, so a 315 percent tariff was slapped on it. China thought that was unfair, so it declared a ban on Korea’s mobile phones and polyethylene products. The dispute seems one-sided, however, since
The tariff expired in 2007, and it wasn’t renewed, at least in part because the garlic growers felt the government hadn’t been vigilant in enforcing the rules when it was obvious that the Pakistani and Filipino garlic originated in China. The shame of it is that domestic garlic was on the brink of commercial success in 2001. Warren Ham, director of anti-dumping for the Garlic Growers Association of Ontario and a grower himself, says the industry was robust enough to supply all the garlic the market needed; it might even have built a climate-controlled warehouse, like the one at Christopher Ranch, so that supplies could be available nearly year-round.
“But it’s not as if we can’t get back there again,” he says. “We have a choice: we could put our garlic back in the ground and wrap up production for five years down the road till we can supply bigger crops.” Or garlic could continue to be what it’s become: a cottage industry, marketed at fairs and farmers’ markets and via mail order. But if growers decide to invest in the future by propagating their crops of garlic for a few years, they need to find another way to earn enough income to support their families in the meantime.
Like most consumers, I had little idea of the effect Chinese garlic had had on growers; I was more consumed by the effect it had on me. How many times have I exchanged complaints with fellow shoppers over bins of those Asian bulbs, deploring the small size that makes the tiny inner cloves hardly worth the effort it takes to peel them, or the little green shoots that mean the garlic is past its prime, or the squishy feeling under the papery skin that means it’s advanced to the point of death? But the garlic effect goes further than the grocery store and mild complaints between shoppers, and it’s arguably bigger than the problems American and Canadian growers are experiencing. It’s also started trade wars and has caused political conflict in other countries.
In Thailand in 2008 the price of garlic dropped from 40 baht to about 17 baht per kilo (from 60 cents to 25 cents per pound)—less than it cost to grow it—and created hardship for many less-than-affluent growers. The culprit was Chinese garlic, huge amounts of which were allowed into the country under a trade agreement. The government’s solution was to encourage the cultivation of potatoes, which were relatively inexpensive to grow. But where were they to be sold? Potatoes aren’t a big part of the Thai diet, and what market there was demanded only perfectly uniform potatoes in pristine condition.
Farmers protested. Garlic became part of an overall political issue as garlic growers joined truck drivers, rice farmers, and fishermen, all wanting assistance in fighting inflation. Samak Sundaravej, who was prime minister of Thailand for a few months in 2008 and considered himself a gourmand (he was known for his pork marinated in Coca-Cola), tried to alleviate the garlic situation. In one of his Sunday addresses to the country he praised the virtues of the beautifully flavorful and much stronger Thai garlic and urged citizens to use it. But the prime minister spoke out of both sides of his mouth. At about the same time an existing highway through Laos from Kunming, China, to Bangkok was being refurbished to cut the driving time of trucks bringing garlic and other fruits and vegetables from China to Thailand.
In Korea, a trade war over garlic erupted in 2000. Koreans were angry about cheap Chinese garlic, so a 315 percent tariff was slapped on it. China thought that was unfair, so it declared a ban on Korea’s mobile phones and polyethylene products. The dispute seems one-sided, however, since
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