How much can you earn per mu growing sweet potatoes in 2018? Yield and market prospect analysis

The scientific name of sweet potato is Ipomoea batatas, also known as yam, red taro, sweet potato, fan shu, fan yu, di gua (northern China), hong shao (in many local dialects), xian shao, bai shu, jin shu, tian shu, zhu shu, zhen shu, fan ge, bai yu, hui yu di gua, red-skinned sweet potato, shan yao (dialect), meng fan shu, etc. It is widely cultivated in our country. So how much can you earn per mu growing sweet potatoes in 2018? What is the usual yield? What are the market prospects? According to Mr. Liu from a sweet potato planting base in Handan, Hebei, the investment in production materials per mu is 600 to 700 yuan, labor wages are 200 to 300 yuan, totaling 800-1000 yuan, plus your land rent is the cost. The general price at harvest time at the field edge is about 0.5 yuan, stored until the Spring Festival it can reach 0.8 yuan, and after the Spring Festival it can reach more than 1 yuan, with some varieties going even higher. So after deducting costs, the income per mu is roughly more than 1200 yuan.

What is the yield per mu when growing sweet potatoes?

Sweet potato is a living organism with its own biological characteristics. Its yield is greatly affected by variety, planting density, the soil it is grown in, how early or late it is planted, management level, local climate, and the weather that year. At the same time, sweet potato reproduces asexually, and yields can reach as high as over 10,000 jin. But under normal circumstances, for field planting, spring sweet potatoes yielding around 6,000 jin is a good yield, and summer sweet potatoes yielding 4,000-5,000 jin is a good yield. As for how much money can be made, that is even harder to say. If they are edible sweet potatoes sold at market, at this volume and with high prices, they can reach 0.6-1 yuan; if they are starch-type sweet potatoes suitable for processing, they are generally 0.3-0.5 yuan per jin.

What are the market prospects for sweet potatoes?

1. Sweet potato is a food rich in many nutrients. In addition to having good anti-cancer effects, sweet potato can also help prevent and treat gastrointestinal ulcers, high blood pressure, and arteriosclerosis, lower cholesterol, and treat constipation and many other conditions. As people gradually recognize the anti-cancer and health-care effects of sweet potatoes, more and more people are eating them, and foreign countries also import large quantities of fresh sweet potatoes from China, so sales volume and prices of sweet potatoes are increasing year by year.

2. Now, depending on variety characteristics, sweet potato cultivation can follow the principles of product differentiation and multiple flavors to develop sweet potato starch, vermicelli, preserved fruit, dried sweet potato, sweet potato beverages and other flavored snack foods, do a good job in deep processing of sweet potato products, extend the industrial chain, and truly turn the sweet potato industry into an industry that increases production and income and enriches the people.

3. At a time of global energy crisis, rising fuel prices, and favorable environmental protection, replacing part of fuel with ethanol (alcohol) has already been implemented in many places in our country, and this is also an inevitable trend in the future. Sweet potato is a good raw material for making alcohol. Our country has the earliest brewing history in the world, and its technology is also relatively advanced. The alcohol output from sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is second only to cassava. 100 kg of fresh tubers (starch type) can produce about 15 kg of alcohol, and starch-type sweet potatoes generally yield about 4,000 kg per mu, which can produce 600 kg of alcohol. The waste material after making alcohol (distiller's grains) is also very good feed for pigs, rabbits, cattle, etc.

4. The nutritional content of sweet potato stems and leaves is very high, exceeding that of any forage grass. The by-products after sweet potato processing, such as starch residue and scraps, are all very good feed for the breeding industry. Therefore, from above ground to below ground, sweet potato has nothing that needs to be discarded. Because sweet potato has a very wide range of uses, many merchants and enterprises have spotted the business opportunity and begun developing the sweet potato industry. Farmers in areas suitable for growing sweet potatoes should seize the opportunity and, according to local market demand, appropriately develop sweet potatoes, and they will certainly achieve good economic benefits.

5. Sweet potatoes have very few pests and diseases, rarely require pesticides, and are basically pollution-free. As a health-care specialty vegetable, they have infinitely broad prospects for development.