Hainan Wanning pineapples unsold with low prices, 2000 yuan per mu makes it hard to profit

"Last year buyers placed orders when the seedlings were still green, but this year the pineapples are ripening in large patches before our eyes, and many buyers are still waiting to see." On the 2nd, Xu Lianzong, president of the Longgun Pineapple Association in Wanning City, Hainan Province, said that the poor pineapple market around this year's Spring Festival has caused concern among growers. Recently, a reporter learned from the Publicity Department of the CPC Wanning Municipal Committee that, in response to the unsold Wanning pineapples, Wanning City issued the "Wanning City 2017 Pineapple Transport and Sales Emergency Subsidy Plan," granting a freight subsidy of 120 yuan/ton for pineapples purchased by transporters and sellers in Wanning.

"A basket of pineapples weighs nearly 40 jin, but sells for only 20 to 40 yuan." Huang Changyun of Shuipo Village, Longgun Town, who is called the "Pineapple King" by villagers because of the large area of pineapple fields he plants himself and contracts, said, "This year our pineapples came to market nearly 20 days early. Xuwen pineapples from Guangdong account for a large market share, and pineapple production on the island has also increased greatly; this year Wenchang and Ding'an both have relatively large planted areas. In previous years buyers filled the guesthouses in Longgun Town, but this year few buyers have come to the town."

Xu Lianzong introduced that farmers plant pineapples on areas as small as a few mu and as large as three or four hundred mu, and in good harvest years a single mu can yield more than 10,000 yuan. Butthis year, with the unsold situation, prices are low, and farmers earn 2,000 yuan per mu, which is not even enough to recover costs; farmers who contract land to plant cannot even recover the contract fee。

It is understood that because of abnormal early weather and increased rainfall, a warm winter occurred, causing Wanning pineapples to come to market earlier and at the same time as pineapples from the Leizhou Peninsula area of Guangdong, resulting in unsold Wanning pineapples and prices as low as 0.5 yuan/jin. To respond to the low prices caused by unsold Wanning pineapples, Wanning City recently issued the "Wanning City 2017 Pineapple Transport and Sales Emergency Subsidy Plan," which grants a freight subsidy of 120 yuan/ton for pineapples purchased by transporters and sellers in Wanning.

A staff member of the Wanning City Agriculture Bureau introduced that, according to the emergency subsidy plan, from January 28, 2017 to February 11, 2017, pineapples purchased by transporters and sellers in Wanning will receive a freight subsidy of 120 yuan/ton.