Mutton market rapidly recovering, Spring Festival mutton prices expected to rise further

We had thought **mutton prices would struggle to pick up this year, but recently, when reporters visited the **beef and mutton market, they found that after November, local mutton prices had quietly recovered, and the increase was quite significant. What exactly is behind such a large swing up and down?

Entering December, **Urumqi had already entered the cold winter early. But at the Urumqi Beiyuanchun market, reporters saw that beef and mutton on the market were beginning to be welcomed by consumers, and compared with the quiet scene two months earlier, there was a clear recovery.

Zhang Zhenqiang, analyst at the Urumqi Beiyuanchun market:

Zhang Zhenqiang: Mutton prices fluctuated widely this year. After rising from the start of the year to 47 yuan per kg in early February, mutton prices began to fall all the way, dropping to around 37 yuan per kg in August and September. After September, as the weather turned colder and demand for mutton gradually increased, prices also showed an upward trend, rising slowly from mid-September to the current 43 yuan per kg.

Li Wei is a local mutton seller in Urumqi. He told reporters that because of the weather, every year when winter arrives, mutton prices rise, which is very normal. But this year, the seasonal rebound in mutton prices was much faster than before, and whether falling or rising, the margins were large.

Li Wei: Compared with last year, this year's lowest price for mutton is a bit lower than last year, and the rest is about the same. From July to September this year, the lowest price fell below 30 yuan, to 27 to 28 yuan. Now in December, the best selected local mutton is around 45 yuan. We observe every year, and the biggest anomaly is that the price rebound is especially obvious. At the transition between autumn and winter, the price can suddenly rise by 5 to 8 yuan from a level of more than 30 yuan.

Why did mutton prices show a roller-coaster decline this year? All of this has to start with the sharp drop in **mutton prices in September this year.

Li Wei told reporters that every year from July to September, large numbers of **sheep are sold out of the mountain grasslands, causing market supply to exceed demand and prices to fall sharply. However, this year, the price of ordinary **mutton fell below 30 yuan per kg, which no one had expected. The main reason, when examined, is that this year's **meat sheep slaughter volume increased greatly.

Li Wei told reporters that according to the habits of previous years, after herders sell large numbers of meat sheep in summer, they generally keep some meat sheep for fattening, or wait until next year to continue selling. But in the past two years, because mutton prices continued to fall, the willingness of farmers changed.

Li Wei: Because mutton prices continued to fall last year, many farmers who fatten sheep in winter were unwilling to buy sheep for fattening again, and herders engaged in livestock farming were also unwilling to raise more sheep the next year, because everyone is losing money now. They were eager to sell off the remaining sheep in their hands, and farmers who stockpiled sheep for fattening were also unwilling to buy sheep, resulting in large numbers of sheep being slaughtered on the market. In fact, many places in our ** have already banned grazing, so the number of sheep in many areas will not grow, only decrease, but now many people have given up the fattening business, so large numbers of sheep were sold from July to September.

In addition, in recent years, the increase in imported mutton and the large supply of mutton from the interior to the **market have also made it impossible for **meat sheep prices to recover in summer.

But after November, **meat sheep prices rebounded quickly and sharply again. Compared with previous years, the emergence of this situation also seems somewhat abnormal. Reporters learned from interviews that this abnormality is also closely related to the decrease in fattened sheep. Dealer Li Wei:

Li Wei: Entering winter, the sheep in pastoral areas have all been sold, and there are no sheep left on the market for sale, so mutton prices began to recover. That is one reason. Another is that in winter, large numbers of our local fattened sheep come onto the market. After the grassland sheep are finished, fattened sheep follow, and the cost of this kind of product is relatively high, so during winter sales, the price is also relatively high, so the price slowly begins to recover. Because in recent years the number of **fattened sheep has also been relatively small, by winter, especially in January during the Spring Festival period, prices during this time are the highest.

Now, **mutton prices have basically caught up with the same period last year. Zhang Zhenqiang, analyst at the Beiyuanchun market, predicts that with the later arrival of the Spring Festival, mutton prices will see another round of increases.

Zhang Zhenqiang: Because **people have the habit of eating mutton in winter, I expect that beef prices should remain stable later on. Around the Spring Festival in January, because the weather turns colder and because of the holiday effect, demand for mutton will increase further, and mutton prices may still show a slight upward trend.