The mindset of clearing existing stock while waiting for a rebound needs to change
Since March, in Zhangpu County, Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province, the main national production area for spring scallions, early scallions have faced their lowest price in 10 years. In mid-April, the local mid-season scallions entered the harvest season, and the scallion market improved somewhat.
At present, the booking price for mid-season scallions exceeds 800 yuan per mu, with the highest exceeding 1,000 yuan. According to Chen Jinglong, a scallion farmer in Qianzhang Village, Chihu Town, at the opening of the market last year the price could reach 3,000 to 4,000 yuan per mu.
"The purchase price offered by processing enterprises is 0.2 yuan per kg. Adding processing and intermediary costs, they can still break even. Farmers are still losing money, but at least losses have been reduced to some extent," said Zhuang Wenbin, director of the cash crop station of the Zhangpu County Agriculture Bureau.
Zhangpu County has more than 50,000 mu of scallions, and its exports of fresh-keeping scallions account for 45% of the national total.
This is not the first time Zhangpu has encountered unsalable scallions. Over the past 10 years, this has played out at least three or four times. Zheng Jianhua, deputy mayor of Chihu Town, still remembers the 2009 unsalable period vividly: "At that time, the financial crisis hit, overseas orders fell sharply, and scallion prices fell to rock bottom, basically on par with this year." However, at that time Chihu's scallion planting area was only half of the current size, so the situation was not as serious.
Zhuang Wenbin said that previous unsalable periods did not accumulate useful experience. Clearing existing stock while waiting for the market to rebound is still the norm for dealing with the situation. The government has provided guidance, but the status quo of "everyone growing scallions" has ultimately not changed.
After scallions became unsalable this year, the local government launched an emergency mechanism, organizing technical personnel to go deep into the main scallion production areas to provide guidance on technology, prices, sales and other information, and to keep timely track of the county's scallion production and sales. The latest market conditions were broadcast on a rolling basis on Zhangpu TV every day and continued until the completion of harvesting in May. In mid-March, Zhangpu County leaders led a team to Chihu Town for research to study how to solve the unsalable seasonal vegetables problem.
The person in charge of the cash crop station of the Zhangpu County Agriculture Bureau said that in recent years, scallion farmers expanded the scale of planting, causing overproduction and price declines. To save costs, some scallion farmers moved to Southeast Asian countries to grow scallions and seize the international market. Chen Qiquan, a large vegetable grower, suggested that since Zhangpu is a major vegetable-growing county in the province and also a vegetable base supplying Hong Kong, China, it should build a large-scale vegetable distribution and wholesale market to bring in merchants.
The local government has also tried to establish a long-term mechanism. The first step is to establish a county vegetable association in May, dedicated to building information platforms across the county for technology extension, price quotations, and marketing. Second, it plans to invest 20 million yuan to build 61 cold storage facilities with a total area of 40,000 sq m, and has already secured more than 6 million yuan.
In Zhuang Wenbin's view, against the broader market backdrop of oversupply, adjusting varieties and rationalizing the structure is even more urgent. Since last year, the local government has gradually guided farmers to grow crops such as Taiwan wax apples and okra. At the Zhangpu scallion market seminar in March this year, he proposed cutting 40% of the current planting area and switching to varieties such as carrots, white radishes and cabbage. He believes that local farmers mostly have planting experience, so switching production is not very difficult; the crux is fixed thinking: "They believe that if the market is bad for a few years, it will improve the next year."
Another approach is to develop deep processing. "Scallions are rich in natural antibiotics, allicin, as well as carotene, vitamins, calcium, magnesium, iron, selenium and other nutrients. If they can be developed for food and medicinal use, it would be timely help for Zhangpu scallions," Zheng Jianhua said. However, there is currently little such research and development in China. In Chihu Town, only two enterprises produce vegetable packets for instant noodles, using mainly the tail parts of scallions as raw material, and the volume they absorb is extremely limited.
Improving self-sufficiency in improved seeds is also an urgent task. At present, the main Zhangpu scallion variety is the Japanese "Tianguang 1-ben". One mu of land requires about 200 yuan in seed costs, keeping costs high.
Some industry insiders suggested that Taiwan's experience could serve as a reference. Sanxing Township in Yilan County, Taiwan, China, combined the scallion industry with cultural and creative industries, crossing into fields such as leisure tourism and high-end dining, creating a distinctive brand and effectively avoiding the situation in which vicious competition makes vegetables cheap and hurts farmers. But Zhuang Wenbin believes that combining primary industry with tertiary industry places very high demands on operational experience and staffing, and that developing deep processing and combining primary industry with secondary industry is currently the best way out.