The supply of vegetables is okay, and prices are limited
According to the monitoring of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the wholesale price 200 index of vegetable basket products on July 23 was 118.91, an increase of 1.92 points from July 1.
Since July, the country has entered the main flood season, and floods have occurred in many parts of the south. Is the national vegetable supply guaranteed? What will happen to the price trend?
"Continued heavy rainfall will affect vegetable production to a certain extent. However, since the area of vegetable sown from April to May is basically the same year-on-year, and the vegetable varieties that have been postponed in the previous period have entered the concentrated marketing period, it is expected that the national vegetable supply will be guaranteed in July. "The chief expert on monitoring and early warning of the vegetable market of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the deputy director of the Institute of Special Products of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences said researcher Kong Fantao.
On July 17, the weighted average price of vegetables at the Beijing Xinfadi Agricultural Products Wholesale Market was 2.42 yuan/kg, a decrease of 2.02% from 2.47 yuan/kg on July 10 a week ago. However, Liu Tong, manager of the statistics department of Beijing Xinfadi Agricultural Products Wholesale Market, said that the recent floods in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River have affected the normal growth of local vegetables. The scale of transportation of vegetables from the north to the south has increased, driving up the price of vegetables in the production areas.
"The recent rebound in overall vegetable prices does not mean that it has entered the rising range." Liu Tong told reporters that each vegetable price has a different trend. For example, the prices of onions and potatoes have basically remained stable. The price of tomatoes has risen because the Hebei tomatoes that were previously listed are about to be delisted. The newly opened tomatoes have generally higher quality and higher prices. In the later stage, vegetable prices will basically fluctuate slightly around the current prices, and there will be little room for continuous rise or continuous decline.
"In the first half of the year, vegetable prices were higher than in previous years, but the fluctuations basically conformed to the seasonal law." said Zhang Jing, an associate researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Information, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
The increase in vegetable prices in the first half of this year was mainly affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic and adverse weather. At the beginning of the epidemic, vegetable planting, seedling cultivation and planting were affected to some extent. The vegetable planting area in cold areas has decreased slightly year-on-year. Since June, rainfall in many places has broken historical records and crops have been seriously affected. In late June, natural disasters such as hail occurred in the main northern summer vegetable production areas, which had a staged adverse impact on the production and supply of open-field vegetables in summer. With the arrival of the main flood season in July, although the national vegetable price is at a low level throughout the year, the overall price has entered an upward range.
Zhang Jing told reporters that in February this year, affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, vegetable prices hit a record high in nearly 10 years. However, since March, vegetable prices have clearly shown a seasonal decline. The month-on-month decline has exceeded 10% for three consecutive months. It quickly fell back to normal levels. Generally speaking, June is the lowest point of vegetable prices in the whole year. Vegetable prices start to enter the upward range during the "light summer" period from July to August. This year's vegetable production "light summer" period is slightly advanced. In June, the national average wholesale price of 28 kinds of vegetables monitored by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs was 4.03 yuan per kilogram, an increase of 3.3% month-on-month and 5.2% year-on-year; in July (to the 19th), the national average wholesale price was 4.25 yuan per kilogram, an increase of 5.7 month-on-month %, the year-on-year increase narrowed slightly to 4.4%. In the past two weeks, weekly vegetable prices have continued to decline month-on-month, with a month-on-month decline of 1.2% and 0.7%. In terms of varieties, 28 types of prices rose year-on-year and 8 types fell. Among them, celery, tomatoes, and Chinese cabbage saw a year-on-year increase of more than 30%, while garlic dropped by more than 30% year-on-year.
Regarding the market outlook, experts predict that vegetable prices will maintain a seasonal upward trend, but the increase is limited. Zhang Jing believes that severe weather such as high temperature and heavy rain will increase in the later period, but due to the stable planting area in the early period, summer vegetables will be concentrated on the market, and the supply of vegetables is expected to be guaranteed. Affected by the high level of vegetable prices in the first half of the year, it is expected that some varieties will be more willing to expand in the second half of the year. If large-scale severe weather does not occur, the supply of vegetables in the later period and autumn and winter will be guaranteed. The overall price of vegetables may be higher than last year, but the increase limited. (Economic Daily-China Economic Net reporter Huang Junyi)