REPORTAGE
Covid-19 in China: in Beijing, salads that are no longer worth a radish
Salad and vegetable stall in a Beijing market on April 28.
© AP - Mark Schiefelbein
Text by: Stéphane Lagarde Follow
3 mins
Vegetables rotting on the stalks on the outskirts of Beijing.
Since May 29, health restrictions have been gradually lifted in the Chinese capital, but peasants continue to suffer from the resurgence of Covid-19.
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With our correspondent in Beijing,
Transport has resumed, shops have been able to reopen, but the salads have not found takers, and this gives a sad landscape, round lettuces as they are called here -some elsewhere speak of iceberg salad-, with dried leaves, sometimes blackened in the fields.
We travel 45 kilometers to see them.
We are still in the city of Beijing, but it is already the countryside.
The rooster crows and we met Mr. Zhang, 78 years old.
"It's not worth anything anymore!
This field nobody wants, and it's the fault of the Covid-19!
»
The weathered face, the mirror hands of a life to work the ground, Mr. Zhang is bitter.
This year, the harvest went up in smoke.
"These salads aren't worth anything anymore, but it's the same further south,
" he says
.
Over there, there is a field where the big cabbages are not rotten at all.
However, it's screwed up because of the Covid!
Even if you want to sell them, they won't let you.
On the other side of this road there are farms with vehicles.
Do you think they come to pick them up?
No way !
the trucks no longer come here: the wholesale markets refuse to take the goods.
»
Health restrictions not yet lifted
Dealers are not coming for his vegetables, as the Covid restrictions have not completely disappeared.
Before falling on these disappointed peasants, we saw on the highway service stations still closed, restaurants.
Schools have not yet reopened in Beijing.
And anyway, it's too late.
It was necessary to collect these vegetables at least two weeks ago.
►Also read
:
Covid-19 in China: first lifting of health restrictions for Beijingers
There was the same thing in Shanghai, recently, in the Pudong district, producers were talking about
200 tons of watermelons lost
,
as the distribution system has not been restored and wholesale markets in confined towns have not fully returned to
normal operation
.
The lettuce rolls on the back of the scooter of a local resident who comes to help herself in the field.
The big white bag in which she collects the salads is almost as big as she is, and she too is over 70 years old.
"
I take this to feed the chickens and ducks
," she said.
We were really unlucky this year.
There are strawberries there, but it's closed.
She hands over a salad.
“
The common people have lost a lot of money with the Covid.
Every day they repeat: beware of the virus!
But if we ordinary people catch it and don't die, what's going to happen?
“, she slips.
“
People stop and help themselves.
They give vegetables to pigs or goats like me.
But this field is still almost 1500 euros lost.
If we had known that before us the peasants, we would not have planted.
And it's not just this village, it's in the whole region.
Anyway, there are too many lettuces this year
,” continues Mr. Zhang.
Surplus lettuces, health restrictions and collapsing prices.
Even if we were allowed to sell them, we were told, the price of these cabbages and salads would barely offset the price of transport to the Xinfadi wholesale market, the first outbreak of Covid-19 infection in June. 2020 in the Chinese capital.
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