2024-08-18
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Recently, the rising vegetable prices in many parts of the country have attracted attention, and some vegetables have even risen to "Chinese New Year prices". In addition to the intuitive feelings of ordinary citizens, what are the real vegetable prices at a macro level? What impact has the price increase had on farmers, merchants and other working groups?
In the past two days, a reporter from The Paper took Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province, as an observation sample and visited several supermarkets, farmers' markets and vegetable planting bases.
Data shows that in July, the overall retail price of vegetables in Nanchang rose slightly, among which cucumbers, eggplants, peppers, bitter melons and other varieties saw relatively obvious price increases. However, due to the impact of previous floods and continued high temperatures, vegetable production declined and farmers' income did not increase significantly; in addition, vegetables are prone to rot in hot weather, increasing losses, which has become a major concern for merchants.
"Cucumbers are 3 yuan per pound, loofahs are 3.98 yuan per pound, and bitter melons are 5.5 yuan per pound..." On the morning of August 16, at a farmer's market in Nanchang, people were busy buying vegetables early in the morning. Ms. Liu, a citizen, checked the price list while choosing. She told the reporter of The Paper that the prices of many vegetables have risen recently, especially cucumbers and bitter melons that are eaten in summer.
"Tomatoes were more than two yuan per pound a month ago, but now the price has risen to nearly four yuan per pound." In another chain supermarket, Ms. Wan, a citizen who was picking tomatoes with a bunch of green onions in her hand, did the math for the reporter. There are only two people in her family, herself and her husband, and they used to spend less than ten yuan a day on vegetables, but now the expense has risen to nearly twenty yuan. "Now I only take two tomatoes each time."
However, some residents believe that the price increase is still within an acceptable range. According to Ms. Li, who often buys vegetables, not all vegetables are increasing in price, and some are only slightly increasing in price. "For example, Hangzhou peppers are sold at around RMB 4 per pound, which is a normal price fluctuation. Another type of screw pepper used to cost RMB 5 or 6 per pound, but now it costs more than RMB 7 per pound, an increase of about 10%, which is not too big."
Faced with rising vegetable prices, catering industry practitioners have chosen to adjust their purchasing strategies. Ms. Tian, the owner of a restaurant, said that although costs have risen, the store's daily menu has not changed much. "If we raise prices, customers will not accept it, and the menu must be varied every day, otherwise it will be too monotonous and affect business. In the past, we bought a lot of vegetables at one time and stored them. Now, in order to reduce losses, we only buy half a day's supply at a time."
Qinyuan Farmers' Market, located in Honggutan District, Nanchang City, is the farmers' market with the most complete functions, the most complete facilities and the largest business area in Jiangxi Province. The main building area is 11,000 square meters, with a total of 538 stalls. In the afternoon, the reporter from The Paper came to the vegetable area on the second floor of the market, where many vendors were still operating.
Ms. Mao's stall is located at the corner of the entrance. Due to its good location, her daily turnover is considerable. When business is good, she can sell 2,000 to 3,000 yuan a day. In her opinion, in addition to the increase in purchase costs, the high temperature weather makes vegetables more likely to deteriorate and increase losses, which is also a major reason for the high vegetable prices.
"Summer vegetables must be sold as soon as possible, otherwise the celery purchased at seven yuan per catty will turn yellow and wilt by the afternoon, and can only be sold at a loss of two yuan per catty." Ms. Mao said, the more expensive the vegetables, the greater the loss. "Take leeks as an example. Although you can make a profit of two yuan for every catty sold, you will lose ten yuan in purchase cost for every catty left. If several catties are lost every day, the profit will be discounted."
At the medium-sized Cuiyuan Road Farmers Market, the number of vendors operating in the afternoon was sparse. When the reporter arrived, vendor Ms. Cai was sorting out a small basin of beans in her hands. She told the reporter that the overall daily sales volume has not changed much recently, but some non-essential vegetables have become relatively difficult to sell. "These beans are what I sold today, and I can only eat them myself at home tonight."
Why do both consumers and vegetable vendors report rising vegetable prices? What exactly happened at the source of production? With this question in mind, The Paper reporter visited the source planting base.
Yangzizhou Town, Donghu District, Nanchang City is located on the bank of Ganjiang River. It is a traditional agricultural town that produces a lot of vegetables. The town has an annual vegetable planting area of more than 6,000 acres. It mainly produces various fresh leafy vegetables and vine fruit vegetables. It has always been an important supply base to meet the demand of Nanchang citizens for fresh vegetables.
"The waterlogging during the flood season this year was quite serious. Most of the vegetable fields were flooded. After the flood season ended, the temperature continued to rise. Some vegetables died in the fields before they could grow out. Even those that survived did not grow as well as in previous years." Uncle Guo, a farmer in Shangfang Village of the town, planted a total of six or seven acres of vegetables. He told reporters that the current period is the off-season when summer vegetables are gradually off the market and winter vegetables have not yet been put on the market. Vegetable prices rise during this period every year. This year, due to the decline in production caused by the climate, the price increase is more obvious.
"Take bitter melon as an example. When it was cheap, the purchase price from our farmers was only 30 or 40 cents per pound. When the market was good, it was only a little over one yuan per pound. But this year the price has risen to more than two yuan per pound." However, Uncle Guo said that the income from growing vegetables has not increased accordingly. "I still earn about 100,000 yuan a year like in previous years. No matter how expensive the market price is, the harvest this year is not good and there is only this much yield in the fields."
Another farmer in the village, Guo Shuchang, has a slightly larger planting area of 14 or 15 mu of vegetables. "Although the price has increased this year, the output is limited and the income from growing vegetables has not increased significantly." Guo Shuchang said that according to his observation, the price of vegetables has fallen in the past week. "Take cucumbers as an example. The purchase price was only 70 or 80 cents per catty in June. It started to rise to 2 yuan per catty in July, and now the purchase price has fallen below 2 yuan."
From the micro perspective of citizens, merchants, and farmers, many people have directly felt the rise in vegetable prices. So what is the situation from the macro data?
On August 15, the Nanchang Municipal People's Government's official website released a report titled "Slight Rise in Vegetable Retail Prices in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province in July 2024". The retail prices of vegetables in Nanchang were mainly falling in July. According to the monitoring of the Ministry of Commerce, the average retail price of 30 monitored vegetables was 8.23 yuan/kg, "14 rose and 16 fell", up 1.4% from the previous month. Among them, green peppers were 10.55 yuan/kg, green onions were 8.56 yuan/kg, and spinach was 12.29 yuan/kg, up 19.1%, 16.6% and 13.6% month-on-month respectively; pumpkins were 3.99 yuan/kg, cabbages were 3.89 yuan/kg, and tomatoes were 7.38 yuan/kg, down 14%, 12.2% and 11.6% month-on-month respectively.
Another "Nanchang City Residents' Daily Necessities Price Monitoring Table" for July 2024, compiled by the Nanchang Price Determination and Monitoring Center under the Nanchang Municipal Development and Reform Commission, shows that in July, the prices of cucumbers, eggplants, peppers, and bitter gourds increased relatively significantly, with month-on-month increases of 34.71%, 8.24%, 28.66%, and 2.30%, respectively, and year-on-year increases of 38.14%, 40.71%, 28.66%, and 36.99%, respectively. The prices of other vegetables were relatively stable or fell.
In addition, a reporter from The Paper learned from the Nanchang Municipal Bureau of Commerce that the overall supply of major vegetables in Nanchang is sufficient and the total trading volume has not changed much. Taking the province's largest Nanchang Shenzhen Agricultural Products Center Wholesale Market as an example, the market has sold an average of 5,700 to 6,000 tons of vegetables per day in the past two weeks, and sales have not fluctuated significantly. At the same time, the prices of major vegetables in the city are relatively stable, and the increase is normal.
Regarding the recent rapid price increases of some types of vegetables, the relevant person in charge of the bureau analyzed that there are two main reasons for this. First, the temperature in Nanchang has been high recently and has lasted for a long time, which has had a significant impact on the growth of local vegetables, resulting in a decrease in production and a shortage of supply. Second, due to the influence of extreme weather, some provinces and cities have had heavy rainfall, which has led to a decrease in the production of vegetables from other places. The supply of some vegetables has been relatively tight, causing price fluctuations.
The person in charge said that in the future, they will continue to strengthen the normalized communication mechanism on daily sales volume and transaction prices of major vegetables with the Nanchang Shenzhen Agricultural Products Center Wholesale Market, and monitor the vegetable market in real time; on the other hand, they will further strengthen guidance and reminders, encourage merchants to increase the efforts to transfer goods from other places, and ensure adequate market supply.
In response to the problems of vegetable loss raised by farmers and merchants, the above-mentioned news released on the official website of the Nanchang Municipal People's Government also gave targeted suggestions such as "accelerating the renovation and upgrading of vegetable wholesale markets and farmers' markets, and configuring necessary vegetable reserve facilities" and "guiding farmers to adjust their planting structure and implement order production".
At the same time, the above news also predicted that "in early August, when autumn begins, the continuous high temperature weather will be alleviated, which will be conducive to the growth of local vegetables and increase the supply of vegetables on the market. If not affected by extreme weather, vegetable prices are expected to still have room to fall, and vegetable prices may steadily decline in the later period."
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