Since July, the volatility of agricultural markets, especially vegetable prices, has attracted widespread attention. According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, from June to August this year, cucumbers, green onions, spinach, cauliflower and other vegetables rose by more than 30%, and some can even compare with the Spring Festival price. In addition to increasing the people's vegetable expenses, what impact does this round of price increases have on vegetable wholesalers and transportation links? Recently, we visited the 1,680-acre Beijing Xinfadi Agricultural Products Wholesale Market (hereinafter referred to as "Xinfadi") and chatted with vegetable wholesalers and transport drivers there.
According to the big data of the digital freight platform Yunmanman, from August 1 to August 31, 2024, the volume of vegetables in the country increased by 11.8% month-on-month, and the top five popular transportation routes were Zhangjiakou - Weifang, Zhangjiakou - Beijing, Zhangjiakou - Baoding, Zhangjiakou - Linyi, Chengde - Weifang. Among them, the provinces with the largest vegetable shipments are Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Yunnan and Shandong.
As we all know, Shandong Province is a veritable "big vegetable garden" in the mainland, and it can be said that at least one catty of every ten catties of vegetables in China is produced in Shandong. According to Yunmanman's big data, from August 1 to August 31, 2024, the top five vegetables with the largest shipments in Shandong Province are green onions, soybeans, garlic, potatoes, and cucumbers. These vegetables are mainly shipped to Shandong, Jiangsu, Henan, Zhejiang, Guangdong and other places.
At Huinongmen in Xinfadi, we met Master Luo, a truck driver who was unloading edamame. Chef Luo is a native of Heze, Shandong, and usually drives his 6.8-meter van to transport vegetables in Shandong and Hebei. "I mainly go to Weifang and Zhangjiakou. In July, we rained heavily, during that time obviously felt that the list of vegetables going out was less, there was an old customer of Shouguang who could send 8-9 cars a day, and in July, a maximum of 5 cars a day, the impact must be there, but from the end of August, the sky is good, the dishes have come down one after another, and recently I have seen that the list of vegetables is full of a lot more. ”
For this round of sharp rise in vegetable prices, agricultural experts believe that the weather is the main reason. July and August are already in the "summer light" period of vegetable production and supply, and the high temperature and rain in summer are not conducive to the growth of vegetables, and the price of vegetables will rise to a certain extent at this time of year. In the summer of this year, the overall rainfall on the mainland is more, especially in Shandong, Sichuan and other places, there are continuous heavy rainfall and thunderstorms and other convective weather, and some areas also suffer from floods, high temperature and continuous heavy rainfall not only lead to a decline in vegetable production, but also increase the difficulty of harvesting vegetables and the cost of storage and preservation.
"Last year's heavy rain and this year's exposure, in July for several days are nearly 40 degrees, a hot day is particularly unfavorable to the growth of cucumbers, which is directly led to the low yield of local cucumbers and high prices." Boss Zhang, a wholesaler of cucumbers in Xinfadi, said. "To give a very simple example, the cucumbers planted in the ground, once the soil temperature exceeds 28 degrees, it is basically not long, and the temperature in Hebei during that time is reported to be 38 degrees, and the ground temperature must be above 40 degrees, and the cucumbers cannot grow at all." Boss Zhang, a native of Langfang, Hebei Province, has been in the cucumber wholesale business for nearly 30 years and has a fixed stall in the Xinfadi Vegetable Wholesale Market in Beijing. "After the beginning of autumn, the temperature has dropped, and the yield of cucumbers in autumn has also risen, and recently we went to the field to harvest vegetables, and the price has dropped by almost 20 or 30 percent compared with before."
Boss Zhang told us that he went to Langfang at 5 o'clock every morning to collect the goods, all of which were fresh cucumbers picked by farmers, and after loading the car, he would arrive in Beijing in about an hour and a half. "Because of the relatively close distance, our cucumbers basically do not need to be transported by refrigerated trucks, and they are generally box goods, mainly 4 meters 2, and a car is almost five or six tons. In May and June, when the volume is large, two cars can be loaded to Xinfadi every day, and now it belongs to the off-season of cucumbers, and one car is transported every day to do wholesale and retail. On the day of the interview, at the booth of Boss Zhang in Xinfadi, the wholesale price of cucumbers with good quality was 2 yuan to 2.5 yuan per catty, and the price with slightly flawed condition was 1.5 yuan per catty. This price has fallen sharply by more than 50% from its peak some time ago.
Hebei Province is also an important vegetable production and marketing province in the country, and the vegetable planting area in Zhangjiakou, Langfang and other places has increased year by year, continuously meeting the vegetable demand of the entire Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. According to Yunmanman's big data, from August 1 to August 31, 2024, the top five vegetables with the largest shipments in Hebei Province are potatoes, cabbage, green onions, carrots, and cabbage. The vegetables sent from Hebei are mainly transported to Shandong, Hebei, Henan, Jiangsu, and Liaoning. Other statistics show that in July this year, the market in Beijing market vegetable market nearly 570,000 tons, of which Hebei Province contributed more than 60%, to a great extent to protect the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei "vegetable basket", and Zhangjiakou - Beijing has become the second most popular route for vegetable transportation in the country in August.
After nearly two months of sharp price increases, vegetable prices began to fall slightly in September. According to data released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, on September 9, the average price of 28 kinds of vegetables under key monitoring was 6.05 yuan/kg, down 0.2% from last Friday. From the perspective of sub-categories, the price of eggplant decreased by 3.8%, and the decline of rape was 3.6%. I believe that in the near future, everyone will be able to regain the "freedom to eat".