Before banning potato imports, publish the storage survey

The Ministry of Natural Resources has done something it does not always do: it has published a draft order, set a comment period and put its figures in the covering note. The draft would bar table-potato imports into the ISEZ until 1 March 2027. Comments close on 30 October. The ministry deserves credit for the openness. The order still has a gap in it, and households would be the ones to fall into it.

The ministry's case is plain. This autumn's crop of about 210,000 tonnes exceeds domestic use of roughly 172,000 tonnes by some 38,000 tonnes. Imports last year were 11,400 tonnes, under 7% of supply. On those numbers a ban looks modest. But the same note shows that almost all of those imports arrived between January and April, which is when cellar potatoes sprout and soften. The ban therefore falls on the weeks when local stocks are thinnest, not on the weeks when the glut is worst.

The ministry says its own model shows stored stocks lasting through February. Asked how much of the crop sits in proper storage, it gave no figure. That is the number the whole order depends on. Dr Irina Selivanova of Talas State University puts losses in ordinary cellars at 15 to 20% in a warm autumn. If she is close, the margin the ministry describes shrinks quickly. Traders in the Bazar-i Kalan say the ban could add IS 0.60 to a kilo by January. The ministry has seen no evidence of that, but it has not shown its own evidence either. A family buying 10 kilos a week would pay IS 6 more every week if the traders are right.

The growers' position deserves a hearing too. One Kyzyl-Adyr farmer sold most of his crop in September at about IS 1.10 a kilo because he had no cellar. A ban helps whoever can store, not whoever had to sell at harvest. If the aim is to keep prices from collapsing again next year, a rule about storage and contracts would do more than a rule about borders.

The draft does contain a safeguard. Clause 4 would let the ministry lift the ban if the average Bazar-i Kalan price passes IS 2.60 a kilo. Loose potatoes were selling at IS 2 on Monday, so that trigger sits a full 30% above today's price before anyone acts. The draft should also say who measures the average, how often, and where the reading is published.

The Herald asks three things before the order is signed. Publish the storage survey and the stock model behind the February estimate. Set the trigger lower, or a shorter ban that can be extended if the stocks hold. And name the price series and publish it weekly, so that traders, growers and shoppers can see for themselves when the clause is close to biting. The traders say they will send a joint letter before 30 October. The ministry should answer it in public, with figures, before it decides.