BEIJING, Nov 27 — China is in the grip of a garlic frenzy, whipped up by the widespread belief that the pungent bulb could keep away the H1N1 flu virus. The craze has seen the price of garlic rising 40 times.
In recent days, garlic has been selling at 9 yuan (RM4.30) a kg in Shandong, where the food is practically a must for every meal, as compared to 0.2 yuan last year, Li Yumeng, a garlic merchant in the eastern Chinese province, told the official Xinhua News Agency.
What caused the spike, said Li Huaicun, an agriculture official from the Shandong city of Heze, is the expanded consumption of garlic at home and abroad, fuelled by the belief that the plant could help strengthen bodily defences against the Influenza A (H1N1) virus.
Add to that the plunge in supply as fewer acreages in China were used for growing garlic in the last two years due to dismally low prices then, it is no wonder the herb is costing so much now, added the official.
Garlic merchant Li also cited speculation, as some of his counterparts from other provinces are known to have bought up garlic by the truckload and then sold it after, contributing to the increase in prices.
Confirming that, Jerry Lou, an investment strategist at investment bank Morgan Stanley, who has been gathering intelligence from China's biggest wholesalers, said speculators had moved into the relatively small garlic market and manipulated prices.
“You need a warehouse, a lot of cash, and a few trucks. That's how it works,” Lou told the London-based Financial Times, describing the tools of the trade used by garlic speculators.
“Basically, what you do is try to arrest as much supply as possible, then you bid up the price. Moving garlic from one warehouse to the other, you make millions of dollars,” he said.
But without the H1N1 outbreak, it is apparently much harder for the speculators to manipulate the market.
In the basement of a meat and vegetable market in Shanghai, stallholder Zhang Weidong claimed that foreigners are importing Chinese garlic for their own H1N1 wars, exacerbating a shortage in China.
Customers are asking for his US$1-a-pound (RM3.40 for 450g) garlic for protection against the virus, just as mediaeval Europeans believed in the bulb's medicinal, even magical, qualities, Zhang said.
China produces about three-quarters of the world's garlic. Argentina and Spain are the next largest exporters.
This is not the first time that China has experienced a garlic frenzy, as back in 2003 the herb also rose in price, to about 1.8 yuan a kg, when the SARS epidemic struck, reported the Guangzhou-based Nanfang Daily.
However, the price reaction then was much milder, noted the newspaper, which stressed that the reputed medicinal property of garlic had never been confirmed by Chinese physicians or scientists.
China's Ministry of Commerce — which tracks rising prices across the country — recently also dismissed garlic as a panacea. It posted an article on its website quoting Chinese traditional medicine experts as debunking the notion that garlic is as good as a flu shot.
But most Chinese apparently do not see any harm in consuming more garlic.
Chinese schools have been hoarding garlic for their pupils to eat, hoping that it could beat off the H1N1 virus, said the Financial Times.
The China Daily has reported that a high school in Hangzhou in eastern China bought 200kg of garlic and made students eat it at lunch to stay healthy. — The Straits Times
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