Garlic prices rise again, Zhejiang climbs to the highest in the country

Since the second half of 2016, garlic prices have been rising all the way, breaking through the prices of the 2010 “Suan Ni Hen” period and climbing to a record high. In Hangzhou, a jin of garlic costs about 13 yuan, more expensive than a jin of pork or two jin of eggs.

Yesterday, at a community vegetable wholesale outlet in the west of Hangzhou, a jin of Shandong garlic was priced at 12.8 yuan.

Vendor Boss He said that at this time last year the price was about five or six yuan a jin, and starting in July and August this year the wholesale price kept rising. “I have changed this price sign four or five times. At first it said seven or eight yuan a jin, then it was changed to nine yuan, ten yuan a jin, and the price I am selling at now was changed a week ago. The wholesale price of garlic is still rising recently, so I may have to change the sign again after this batch is sold out.”

Boss He said Hangzhou's garlic mainly comes from Shandong. In the first half of the year, what was sold was mainly garlic left over from the previous year, that is, garlic from cold storage. Late July to mid-August is when large quantities of new garlic hit the market, and garlic prices usually fall then, but this year they have been rising abnormally all along. Moreover, in this round of garlic price increases, Zhejiang's prices are the highest in the country.

According to monitoring of garlic at major wholesale markets across the country, last Friday the highest wholesale price in the northern region was in Beijing, at 8 yuan per jin. Nationwide, the Zhejiang Jiashan Zhebei Fruit and Vegetable Wholesale Trading Market had the highest wholesale price, at 9 yuan per jin, while Yiwu's price was 8.6 yuan per jin, ranking second among major wholesale markets across the country.

“Prices falling for consecutive years led to insufficient inventory, which is the main reason garlic prices have stayed high this year,” a wholesaler said. According to one set of statistics, the total amount of domestic garlic put into storage this year was about 1.8 million tons, 600,000 tons less than last year and 900,000 tons less than the year before.

Monitoring by Zhuochuang Information shows that after mid-November, the cold-storage garlic market was stable for only one week, and as the northern region cooled and snowed, storage holders once again became reluctant to sell. “Because this year's storage volume is lower than the same period last year, most garlic traders who currently have goods are full of confidence in the future market, and some plan to ship again before the Spring Festival,” said an agricultural product analyst at Zhuochuang Information. And starting in mid-to-late November, as distributors in the domestic market increased their purchases, sellers at the production areas also began to tentatively raise prices, causing garlic prices to rise rapidly.

Besides garlic, in the just-past November, chili pepper prices also went through a thrilling round of sharp increases.

In mid-November, in just 4 days, the ex-warehouse price of chili peppers rose by 1 yuan per jin. That is equivalent to earning 1 million on a 500-ton warehouse of chili peppers in 4 days! In Shandong Jinxiang, a major chili-producing area, this attracted a large number of garlic brokers to switch to working as chili brokers.

Statistics from Zhuochuang Information show that in November, apart from Shandong, Inner Mongolia, Anhui, Hubei and other places, chili varieties such as green peppers, dried peppers, thin-skinned peppers and thick-skinned peppers all saw sharp increases. “The reason for the sharp rise in chili peppers is the impact of earlier weather,” said Zhuochuang Information analyst Cui Xiaona. On the one hand, affected by earlier rainfall and high temperatures, chili output fell sharply; on the other hand, the quality of the chili peppers was seriously affected, and good goods were in short supply. Because many large distributors anticipated this year's chili production cut, they rushed to stockpile goods and purchased relatively aggressively, which led to a straight-line rise in chili prices.

However, the National Development and Reform Commission sent people to Jinxiang on November 15 to investigate the cause of the sharp rise in garlic prices. Chili prices and trading volume quickly fell, but garlic prices are still at a high level.