The garlic market was sluggish in 2018. Science Xingnong believes that the garlic market in 2019 will improve slightly compared with 2018, but do not be too optimistic. Barring any surprises, the garlic market in 2019 will only be slightly stronger than this year, and cannot yet be called a major rise. This judgment is based on the following reasons: 1. Garlic was unsalable in 2018, with a serious oversupply. 2. Cold storage is now quite complete, and this year's garlic is enough to maintain market supply until next year's garlic arrives. 3. Farmers' planting area has shrunk somewhat, but this still cannot completely reverse the supply-demand situation.

Oversupply in 2018

This year's garlic oversupply is not a problem that has only just appeared. Ever since new garlic from the south came onto the market in April, garlic has been in an unsalable state. This situation has never been reversed, and a large part of the reason is that after the sharp rise in garlic prices in 2016, garlic farmers, driven by profit, ignored market supply factors and expanded planting area year after year, leading to a serious oversupply of garlic. On the one hand, garlic farmers lack risk awareness; on the other hand, it stems from insufficient access to information among garlic farmers. This situation will also directly affect garlic farmers' planting area this autumn and the amount of garlic stored in cold storage.

Large cold storage reserves

Judging from the situation in June this year, the old garlic in cold storage still has not been completely sold. In other words, current cold storage technology is enough to ensure that last year's garlic can be stored until this year. Faced with such a huge amount of garlic on the market this year, garlic buyers will presumably not reduce their reserves of this year's garlic, and waiting for the market to improve next year before selling is probably the mindset of many garlic traders.

Judging from this year's situation, even if the garlic planting area decreases somewhat this year, the garlic in cold storage alone will basically be enough to guarantee next year's garlic supply without becoming tight.

Garlic planting area to shrink in 2019

For next year's garlic, the planting area will certainly shrink. This can be seen from the mindset of many garlic farmers, because garlic prices fell really badly this year. A preliminary calculation puts the net loss per mu of garlic at 1,500 yuan. In such a situation, who would still be willing to keep planting? As the saying goes, cheap grain hurts the farmer, and this has always been so. Once bitten by a snake, one fears a rope for ten years. Farmers have a strong herd mentality when planting, so for this autumn's garlic area, a reduction can be said to be a foregone conclusion.

In summary, next year's garlic market will be somewhat better than this year's, but no one can guarantee that next year's market will definitely return to normal. The so-called garlic cycle law of "a big rise every three years, a fall every two years" seems likely to continue, which is also based on a summary of many years of past market conditions. Still, I hope next year's garlic market will see a major reversal, but is that possible?

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