Gilroy, California, just celebrated the thirtieth annual Gilroy Garlic Festival. In 1978, when the festival first brought food journalists, farmers, and chefs together, the purpose of the festival was to convince a skeptical American population that garlic was a delicious part of a healthy diet. At the time, Gilroy was the world’s leading garlic producer.

Thirty years later, garlic doesn’t need to be “sold” to a dubious world; the aromatic bulb has become one of the most popular vegetables around. Things haven’t fared so well for Gilroy – although the town holds on to its crown as “Garlic Capital of the World”, that’s the result of the huge garlic processing operations that have taken root. There are only three garlic farms left in Gilroy.

The reason is extremely low-cost imported garlic from China. China now produces 75 percent of the world’s garlic, exporting more than 138 million pounds annually. American growers say that the Chinese are able to undercut them severely because of the greatly lower cost of production in China. A box of garlic that costs $25 to produce in the United States can be produced for $6 in China. Aficionados say that there’s no competition when it comes to taste; the US-grown produce is of distinctively higher quality. However, with most garlic being used in processed foods rather than as a stand-alone dish, the quality differential hasn’t been enough to keep US growers competitive, and more and more of them have simply shut down or switched to other crops.

The US imposed a 377% tariff on Chinese garlic imports in 1994, and for a few years the tariff worked to limit imports of Chinese garlic to the US. However, in the intervening years, Chinese growers and shippers have found ways around the tariff, which was limited in its scope to a specific list of growers and exporters. Other exporters have entered the business, and even the old group which was subject to the tariff have found ways to route their garlic through third countries, evading the tariff and underselling the US producers significantly.

Gilroy will continue to host its wildly popular Garlic Festival each year, and thousands of attendees will enjoy the delicious roast garlic and learn about the many uses of this versatile and health-boosting plant. Unless something changes, however, the garlic those festival-goers enjoy back at home is unlikely to have been grown in the United States.  Perhaps the new Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) will help steer more Americans to buy US garlic.

Credit: Original Illustration by IDEAVIZ, Title Quote by William Shatner