Vegetable prices have risen to the sky, but vegetable farmers have lost all their money: the market changes very quickly, and vegetable banks and wholesalers have pricing power.

before the cold winter comes, the "vegetable basket" sinks first.

A kilo of broccoli in 1 yuan, spinach in 15 yuan and leek in 18 yuan are even more exaggerated, reaching a kilo. According to the detection of "National Wholesale Market Price Information System" of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, vegetable prices have been rising continuously since October, and the average price of 19 kinds of vegetables in 286 wholesale markets in China has increased by 27.4% year-on-year.

You know, at present, the average price of pork in the bazaar is only 1.5 yuan/kg, and "vegetables are more expensive than meat" has become a real and magical vomit, and all kinds of teasing jokes are endless: the year before last, pork was fried with cabbage, but this year, it has become reluctant to put cabbage, so we can only eat meat.

It can be said that soaring vegetable prices have affected every family. Some netizens said that the price is too expensive for wallets to hold, and some netizens think that it is not easy for vegetable farmers to catch up with the "good market" and make them make a lot of money, which is also a comfort.

Then the question comes. Can vegetable farmers really benefit from the double price of vegetables? The answer may be unexpected.

why did the price of vegetables soar?

In fact, since September 19th, Shouguang, which is known as the barometer of vegetable prices in China, has discovered "abnormality". The vegetable price index has been rising for four weeks in a row, and there is a tendency to continue to rise.

In Shouguang Agricultural Products Logistics Park, wholesalers "made a big fight" to buy spinach. The price of high-quality spinach in the same period last year was 2 yuan/kg, and this year it has been raised to 5 yuan ~ 8.5 yuan/kg. Even if it has been multiplied several times, it will not be enough.

"It's too damp, leafy vegetables are too rotten, and at least half of them are lost." Compared with wholesalers, the anxiety of vegetable farmers is increasing. "Water can't seep in the ground and become clear water, and many people's dishes are directly soaked."

Vegetables are planted twice a year, the early seeds are planted around June 2th and the middle seeds are planted around July 1th. According to the law, they can be fully supplied, but contrary to expectations, the rainfall this year is obviously more than in previous years.

especially after the end of September, it rained continuously in a large area in the north, and the temperature dropped rapidly. Affected by large-scale and long-term continuous rainfall, vegetable fields are flooded not only in Shandong, but also in northern vegetable producing areas such as Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Shanxi and Shaanxi.

Some villagers also built greenhouses to grow vegetables, which also caused heavy losses. Because the outer frame of the greenhouse needs to be placed on the soil slope, the soil is soft and collapses after being soaked in heavy rain, and the whole thing collapses. Although the greenhouse can stop the rain, it can't stop the water, and the seeds can't be planted at all. Even if they are planted reluctantly, the seedlings are very thin.

the difficulty in harvesting vegetables has led to a sharp increase in acquisition costs. Vegetables grown in the open field are usually harvested mechanically, but now they can only be harvested manually because of serious water accumulation.

to make matters worse, the prices of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides have risen one after another since this year. Take compound fertilizers as an example. In September alone, the prices of raw materials for chemical fertilizers all increased by more than one time year-on-year. Coupled with the rising energy prices such as coal, the cost of greenhouse has increased, which has continuously pushed up the cost of vegetable planting.

under the butterfly effect, many merchants have to take circuitous routes to collect vegetables. For example, the spinach in the Beijing market mainly comes from Liaocheng, Shandong Province. Due to the serious reduction in production, only a small amount of spinach in greenhouses can be listed in Liaoning. Broccoli mainly comes from Langfang and Handan in Hebei, but this year it can only be purchased in large quantities from Yinchuan in Ningxia.

Non-main producing areas lack the advantages of economies of scale, and with the sharp increase in transportation costs, prices naturally rise. It is worth mentioning that the prices of gasoline and diesel have risen 13 times during the year, and a little bit of factors are piled up together, and finally reflected on the table through the price of vegetables.

As for how long this round of vegetable prices will rise, Zhang Jing, a researcher at China Academy of Agricultural Sciences, gave a prediction: "In the short term, it is easy to rise, but it is difficult to fall. Later, with the recovery of vegetable production, some vegetables that have been put on the market are concentrated, and the prices of some varieties may also fall. However, continuous rainfall has affected the planting of vegetables in autumn and winter in some places, and it is expected that the overall price of vegetables in winter will be high."

Zhu Danpeng, a food industry analyst in China, also pointed out that with the decrease of rainfall, vegetable production will resume, but at present, vegetables are basically operated by retail investors, and with the arrival of New Year's Day and Spring Festival, the contradiction between supply and demand in the market will be further aggravated, so it is more likely that vegetable prices will remain high in the next few months.

despite this, the vegetable farmers are not happy, but gloomy. Because of the weather, this year's vegetable output is not only much worse than before, but also the expenses of seeds, seedlings, land rent, labor, water and electricity, agricultural materials, etc., which are invested in the early stage, almost lose blood.

can vegetable farmers really benefit?

because of the particularity of vegetables, they can't be stored for a long time, and their timeliness is very short. Therefore, although the price of vegetables has risen, if consumers are unwilling to pay the bill, the wholesalers of agricultural products will reduce their purchases. In the end, the vegetables can only rot in the ground and both ends will not benefit.

I still remember that at the end of March this year, a short video unveiled the "spinach farmers"-near a farmer's market in Handan City, a farmer and his wife finally had to dispose of the 1,3 kg spinach in their car to a vegetable vendor at the low price in 15 yuan.

Now, it's only been half a year, but spinach has gone from being neglected at the beginning to "vegetables are more expensive than meat". However, vegetable farmers who have no vegetables to harvest can only watch the spinach price soar and sit still.

"Vegetable farmers who have spinach in their hands may still make some money, but this money can only be said to be a gift from God, and they will lose money again next year." A vegetable vendor who went to the northeast to buy spinach said, "Now the vegetable farmers in the northeast are very happy, but they can't think of it. As long as the supply of spinach returns to normal, who else will bear the risk of having to pay more than one piece per catty of spinach?"

generally speaking, there are several kinds of participants in the vegetable trading process, including vegetable farmers, vegetable banks, wholesalers, retailers and buyers. The vegetable farmers at the bottom of the pyramid have no say in pricing, and it is often the vegetable banks and wholesalers who can control the price.

The vegetable merchants will take advantage of the asymmetry of information to buy a large number of vegetables when they are ripe, and sell them when the price of vegetables rises to the highest point, and then the vegetables will flow into the vegetable wholesale markets in various provinces and cities across the country; Then the wholesaler will transfer to the major supermarkets for retail, and the supermarkets will finally set the price according to the wholesale price. In the process of layer-by-layer overweight, vegetable farmers are always the weakest party, and it is fortunate to get 1% of the income.

regardless of vegetable production, processing and circulation, this industrial chain belongs to labor-intensive industries. The rising of various costs makes the wholesale price of vegetables keep rising, on the other hand, the profit rate of vegetables keeps falling.

according to the average annual wholesale prices of 28 kinds of vegetables tested by the Ministry of agriculture and rural affairs, the vegetable prices in China showed a fluctuating upward trend from 211 to 219.

But rising prices do not mean "making money". According to the data of Agricultural and Rural Information Center, the profit rate of vegetable industry was as high as 85% in 211, and this figure will be 4.9% in 218. The overall profit rate of vegetable cost showed a downward trend, which dropped by about 45% in eight years.

"You have to spend more money to run the food well." In Xishe Village, Zhengding County, Hebei Province, Huang Qingshan, chairman of Qingyuan Hetian Vegetable Planting Professional Cooperative, said that due to environmental protection requirements, the cooperative has invested a lot of manpower and material resources in the use of pesticides in recent years. Although the price of fertilizers has repeatedly increased this year, it can only be used.

"The popularization of these advanced and green technologies has not only improved the quality of vegetable products, but also increased the input cost." Huang Qingshan said that in addition, the investment in vacuum precooling and other equipment is also very large. "This account can't be calculated carefully, so you should cry if you calculate it carefully."

It's like an inexorable cycle. No matter how high the price of vegetables is, vegetable farmers just don't make money. In this regard, Huang Qingshan felt helpless: "In the summer of last year, the parsley on the market was sold for 5 to 6 yuan per catty or even 8 yuan. However, due to the weather, there were few parsley in the field, and there was no amount. How can we make money? In most cases, when the price of a certain dish was high, the majority of vegetable farmers were basically at a loss."

Today, most people still blindly attribute the situation of vegetable farmers to "blindly following the trend of planting", but the vegetable market changes very quickly, so it is not easy to step on the spot. You can feel the demand for vegetables in today's market, but you can't predict what the market will be like tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.

Secondly, under normal production conditions, vegetables have obvious seasonality and regionality. When it comes to the market season, it is basically listed in batches. In the vicinity of the origin of related products, there is often a bad market.

Fortunately, the agricultural sector has begun to use digital means to guide agricultural planting, but the vegetable farmers who are not yet fully mature and depend on the weather for food still have to face an adventurous "game".

is inflation coming?

when it comes to price increases, it is easy to think of inflation, especially this year.

not only vegetables, but also the prices of all kinds of commodities are rising to varying degrees, ranging from bulk commodities and energy to daily necessities such as towels and paper towels.

under the pressure of public opinion that the price of vegetables in India has doubled, there are no French fries to sell in KFC in Japan, and the inflation of 1,9 yuan for a kilogram of beef in South Korea, there have been different degrees of "crazy rush" abroad, and the shelves of IKEA and Wal-Mart have been sold out.

according to economic theory, if more money is issued, there will be too much money supply in the market, which will lead to higher prices and lower purchasing power. However, it needs to be clarified that the central bank has not issued a large amount of money. The surge in vegetables in China is more due to extreme weather factors, which has led to a large reduction in vegetable production, which has led to an imbalance between supply and demand.

When the price of pork rose last year, some people on the Internet kept preaching that "inflation is coming". Now, pork has fallen below the cost price.

On the other hand, most of the varieties of vegetable prices rising this time are green leafy vegetables, while crops such as carrots and potatoes have not seen outrageous prices.

in addition, the production cycle of vegetables is short, and the production cycle of leafy vegetables such as Chinese cabbage, spinach and leek is about 3-5 days, which is much better than that of pork, which often takes half a year. Therefore, the supply-side problem can only be alleviated in this time.

to take a step back, we also have the "vegetable basket project", which was established in 1988 to ease the shortage of non-staple food supply in China.

after 33 years of unremitting efforts, China has jumped from a country lacking vegetables to the country with the richest vegetables in the world, and its output and consumption rank first in the world, so residents can eat fresh vegetables all year round.

At present, China's vegetable production and sales account for more than 5% of the global market share, with an annual output of over 7 million tons, with a per capita consumption of 1, Jin, or about 3 Jin of vegetables a day on average. In the long run, there will be no problems in supply.

Therefore, the probability of inflation caused by rising vegetable prices is not great. Conversely, this vegetable price increase is not caused by inflation.

What's more, China is the only country with the most complete industrial categories in the world, and most of the commodities needed by the economy and society are basically self-sufficient.

In recent years, China has been continuously strengthening the strategic reserves of bulk commodities, especially in the raw materials such as grain, energy and ore. When the prices are significantly abnormal, China will use the reserved materials to ensure supply and thus stabilize prices. When the price of bulk commodities is effectively controlled, China's inflation level can be maintained within the target range.

Although the supply chain is temporarily blocked, it is foreseeable that with the end of the rainy season in the north and the listing of vegetables in the south, the price of vegetables will gradually drop soon, so there is no need to panic.

let's enjoy the rare "freedom to eat meat" before the price of vegetables goes down.