Abu Dhabi farmers cry foul as excessive supply of tomatoes floods market

Excessive imports of tomatoes flooding Abu Dhabi markets have driven down prices in markets, causing local farmers to call for government intervention.

The Abu Dhabi vegetable market has been swamped with large quantities of tomatoes for more than a month.

Farmers in Abu Dhabi have complained that imported vegetables sometimes flood the market for long periods of time.

This causes significant losses to local farmers because of the sudden decrease in prices of local products, said farmers.

Currently, around 100 trucks of tomatoes, each weighing 7 tonnes, are being unloaded at the markets everyday.

This is a 50 per cent increase in the supply of tomatoes this month.

The farmers have called on authorities to take measures to protect local products.

They claimed that neighbouring countries have adopted restrictive measures after their markets suffered from excessive imports and hoped that the UAE would do the same.