Honeysuckle Market Sluggish in the New Season, Driven by Weakening Demand from Downstream End Users
Right now it is the new-harvest season for honeysuckle. In China's main honeysuckle-producing areas such as Shandong, Shaanxi, Henan and Hebei, this should be a season of abundant supply and brisk buying and selling, but our reporter has learned that this year this widely used Chinese medicinal herb seems very desolate. Not only is the price lower than in previous years, but the trading market is also very quiet, leaving flower farmers frowning with worry. What exactly has caused the market for this famous Chinese medicinal herb to be in such a state this year? Should flower farmers sell at the market price or hold back their goods and wait?
Walking into a honeysuckle planting base in Yibin County, Sichuan, the fragrance of honeysuckle fills the hillsides, and the growth and harvest are very good. However, the good harvest has not made local honeysuckle grower Yang Shengjun happy. Because honeysuckle prices are sluggish this year, and along with rising pesticide and labor costs, the income of honeysuckle growers - the flower farmers - has fallen sharply, and Yang Shengjun poured out his troubles to our reporter.
Yang Shengjun: The price on our side is not very ideal, and the market is not very good this year. Honeysuckle prices are bad all over the country.
Yang Shengjun told our reporter that at present the best local honeysuckle can sell on the market for 30 yuan per jin, while last year it was 50 yuan per jin; ordinary honeysuckle generally sells for 20 yuan to 23 yuan per jin, while last year it was about 30 yuan. Overall, regardless of quality, this year's price has basically dropped by about 20 yuan per jin compared with last year.
Yang Shengjun: It is more than 20 yuan per jin. At this time last year the price was 30 yuan, and this year the price is 22 yuan or 23 yuan. Now there is just not much profit, and the reason is that last year's inventory was too large.
Public information shows that honeysuckle is one of the 70 precious medicinal materials designated by the State Council, and also one of the 38 precious Chinese medicinal materials under key national management. Because of its excellent antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and antiviral effects, it has become the first-choice medicine in prevention and treatment prescriptions for SARS, H1N1 flu, hand, foot and mouth disease and others. It is precisely for this reason that today's honeysuckle prices are sluggish. Chen Qing, director of the Information Center of the Chinese Medicinal Materials World Network, analyzed that one reason is that after the outbreaks of “SARS” and “H1N1 flu” in previous years, honeysuckle prices soared, and flower farmers planted honeysuckle on a large scale at that time. In recent years, this batch of honeysuckle has been flourishing with abundant foliage and rapidly increasing output, so market supply exceeds demand.
Chen Qing: Honeysuckle has excess production capacity and accumulated inventory. Honeysuckle is a perennial plant. The honeysuckle planted under the stimulus of high prices in 2010 and the following years can still produce normally at present, and countless secondary production areas across the country are still developing honeysuckle planting. As of the end of 2014, there were still several thousand tons of honeysuckle inventory waiting to be digested.
On the other hand, besides being used as a Chinese medicinal material, another major use of honeysuckle is as an important ingredient in herbal tea, but in recent years some relatively large herbal tea companies have chosen cheaper Lonicera macranthoides instead of honeysuckle, causing market demand to decrease. Zhang Bin, an analyst of the Chinese medicinal materials market at Sublime China Information, said:
Zhang Bin: Affected by the overall sluggish environment, demand from downstream end-user enterprises has weakened, market digestion is slow, and in addition Lonicera macranthoides has seized a certain market share. Under this impact, oversupply is becoming increasingly serious. Especially this year, since the market opened, market inspections have continued to intensify, the new pharmacopoeia has been issued, and manufacturer certification work is imminent, causing manufacturers to purchase more cautiously. Many aspects of the honeysuckle industry, such as standardization, branding, international competitiveness and application fields, still need to be improved and developed.
The accumulation of long-standing chronic problems in the industry has caused the ills of the honeysuckle industry to finally erupt this summer. Chen Qing, director of the Information Center of the Chinese Medicinal Materials World Network, analyzed that China's honeysuckle industry has relatively large problems in the three aspects of production, circulation and sales.
Chen Qing: In terms of honeysuckle production, the various production areas have no clear understanding of the market demand for honeysuckle or of their own positioning in that market demand. Production areas still follow the pattern of “expanding planting whenever prices are high, and abandoning harvesting whenever prices are low”, so the contradiction between honeysuckle production capacity and supply and demand persists over the long term.
In terms of honeysuckle circulation, because honeysuckle production areas are concentrated, it is conducive to organization in production; there is much enterprise-type demand, and goods can be disposed of relatively conveniently, which has caused the market's participation in honeysuckle circulation to be constantly troubled by speculative factors.
In addition, in terms of honeysuckle sales, Chen Qing analyzed that the contest between honeysuckle and Lonicera macranthoides at the consumption end has not disappeared, and consumer enterprises and individuals still have a certain degree of selectivity in purchasing, resulting in weak demand for honeysuckle as well. For this reason, he called for:
Chen Qing: For honeysuckle growers, I personally believe that grasping market information and flexibly buying, selling and producing has always been the main theme of maximizing returns. Usually, one should learn more about honeysuckle market information through the internet and mobile internet. Second, one should actively develop contract farming oriented to the market, and actively establish contacts with market end users through group cooperation and other means, so as to reduce the time one's goods sit in inventory. Third, one should strictly standardize and normalize one's own planting and processing practices, not fumigate with sulfur and not adulterate, and win the long-term favor of customers through high-quality goods.
Because overall honeysuckle market prices have declined in recent years, flower farmers' returns have become smaller and smaller, and their willingness to invest has gradually declined. Zhang Bin also told farmers that although the market is sluggish, they should still build confidence, and the idea of blindly reducing planting area and abandoning planting is not advisable.
Zhang Bin: As the era of great health arrives and people's awareness of health preservation and care increases, the entire traditional Chinese medicine industry has huge future development prospects, and the application scope of honeysuckle is also constantly expanding, with relatively large demand potential. In difficult times, seek innovation and change, be good at using resources and policy advantages, and while ensuring profits, promote the healthy and orderly development of the entire industry.