A netizen asked: "Last year's tomatoes, this year's bitter melons, why has the glory of Shandong Shouguang's greenhouses faded?" When people mention Shandong Shouguang, the first thing that comes to mind is its vegetable trading center. It can be said that Shouguang vegetables are a specialty of Shandong. The Shouguang vegetable brand is well-known throughout the country, and its agricultural planting technology has always been among the top in the country. However, the question asks whether Shouguang's greenhouse glory has faded. Let me discuss this issue with everyone here.

"Last year's tomatoes, this year's bitter melons"

What does the phrase "last year's tomatoes, this year's bitter melons" mean? It refers to the fact that in the previous two years, tomato prices kept rising, especially in 2013 when tomato prices were absurdly high, with the ex-greenhouse price at around 5 yuan, and it can be said that farmers who grew tomatoes in greenhouses that year all made a fortune. But the good times did not last. Last year, that is 2017, the tomato market price was not so optimistic. At the end of last year, tomato prices fell sharply, with the ex-greenhouse price at about 1.5 yuan per kilogram.

Bitter melon

Now let's look at the bitter melon market. This year's bitter melon market is indeed not very ideal. Below is a recent bitter melon price trend chart from Shandong Shouguang. As can be seen from the chart, this year's bitter melon prices are not very ideal, with the overall price level being on the low side.

Shouguang's vegetable planting industry

The above analysis covered the market changes of two vegetables, tomatoes and bitter melons. In fact, it is not just these two vegetables that have seen price declines. Every year, many vegetables experience low prices and even unsalable situations. This is a characteristic of vegetables themselves. Have you not seen that this year's garlic prices are also frighteningly low? Does this also mean that Shouguang's vegetable greenhouses are declining? Overall, Shouguang's vegetable greenhouses are currently developing quite well, though various problems are inevitably present.

There are many reasons for this, not just problems with vegetable planting in the Shouguang area. In fact, this also reflects problems in the national vegetable planting industry; it is just that people have magnified them through the Shouguang area.

Shouguang's vegetable greenhouse planting technology can be said to be leading nationwide, but why have the benefits in the past two years been far from as good as before? I believe this is not an isolated case. It should be said that this problem exists across the entire vegetable industry; it is just more obvious in Shouguang.

Shouguang's vegetable planting industry is no longer as mysterious as it once was, and this can be said to be a fact. Because the success of Shouguang's vegetable greenhouses set a template for the national vegetable planting industry, it naturally led more vegetable growers across the country to imitate and learn from it. With so much learning, naturally everyone knows how to do it. But the market is only so big. In the past, I had a monopoly; now there are blossoms everywhere, so naturally there are more people competing for business, and it is harder to do well.

Although Shouguang's vegetable planting is not as exciting as before, Shouguang's vegetable planting industry is also constantly learning and progressing. Personally, I believe that setting aside the issue of vegetable market cycles, Shouguang's vegetable greenhouse planting technology is still second to none in China, and this is beyond doubt. However, to develop better, more innovation is still needed. On this point, I think the Netherlands is the country that does the best in the vegetable planting industry, and there is much to learn from.

The second issue is branding. I previously analyzed the issue of agricultural specialty products in Xinjiang, and actually I think it is very similar here. Both are well-known agricultural planting bases in China. But both also face the problem of poor market conditions. Both have the problem of branding not being done well enough. When people mention Shouguang, they naturally think of Shouguang's vegetables, but then nothing more comes to mind.

This also shows that Shouguang's vegetable planting industry is not refined enough and cannot make consumers remember it more deeply, which is a problem of insufficient brand awareness. If brand awareness were strong enough, Shouguang's vegetable planting today would certainly be more popular. After all, people's living conditions have improved now, and their acceptance of products with good quality but slightly higher prices is much stronger than before. However, Shouguang's vegetable planting industry is mostly carried out by ordinary farmers, and what is lacking is more novel pollution-free, high-tech planting. Only such a vegetable planting industry can go further.

The above comes from Science Promoting Agriculture.