The price of vegetables has risen for 8 weeks, and the price of meat and eggs has risen. What is the price pressure？

Xinhua News Agency, Jinan, August 27th Question: the price of vegetables has risen for 8 weeks, and the price of meat and eggs has risen. What is the price pressure?

Xinhua News Agency reporters Yuan Junbao, Richard Chang and Shao Kun.

Recently, there has been a rapid rise in vegetable prices nationwide. According to industry experts’ analysis, the high temperature weather, strong typhoon and heavy rainfall in July and August this year are the main reasons for the high vegetable prices. At the same time, the prices of pork and eggs are also rising obviously, and the simultaneous rise in the prices of various agricultural and sideline products will push up prices to some extent.

Vegetable prices have risen for eight consecutive weeks, especially recently.

"The recent increase in vegetable prices is a bit outrageous." "The dishes you usually eat are basically less than one pound and two dollars." When the reporter interviewed in Beijing and Jinan recently, many citizens said that after entering July and August, especially in the past week, the price of vegetables increased significantly.

Zhang Deshun, a citizen of Jinan, said: "Many dishes have risen too fast and the price is too high. For example, spinach has reached 10 yuan/kg, and better celery has to be 4 yuan/kg." A merchant in the Chessboard Market in Lixia District of Jinan also told reporters that many vegetable prices have been rising since the end of July. In recent days, due to the impact of typhoon and rainfall, the price of green leafy vegetables has risen particularly sharply.

According to the monitoring data released by the Information Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, from the beginning of July to the end of August, the average price of 19 kinds of vegetables in 286 wholesale markets in China has risen for 8 consecutive weeks. In the 34th week of this year (from August 17th to August 23rd), the average price of 19 kinds of vegetables was 3.44 yuan/kg, up 7.4% from the previous month and 13.9% from the same period last year.

Shouguang City, Shandong Province, as an important vegetable producing area and "transit station", has been seriously affected by typhoons and heavy rainfall recently, and the price of vegetables in the local wholesale market has also increased significantly. According to the monitoring data of Shouguang Agricultural Products Logistics Park, the vegetable price index rose from 98.52 on July 28th to 161.43 on August 25th, with a rapid increase of 26.47 points from August 20th to 23rd.

Weather factors such as high temperature and typhoon push up the price of vegetables.

People in the industry generally believe that the general increase in vegetable prices in July and August this year is related to high temperature and typhoon weather.

The Information Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has repeatedly mentioned that "the hot weather and slow growth of vegetables are the main reasons for the increase in vegetable prices", "the hot and high temperature weather pushed up vegetable prices", "the large-scale rainfall in the whole country adversely affected the growth and transportation of vegetables" and "the heavy rain brought by Typhoon Wambia pushed up vegetable prices rapidly".

According to the data of meteorological department, there are many high temperature weather in the country this summer. From July 14th to August 15th, the Central Meteorological Observatory issued an ultra-long high temperature warning for 33 consecutive days. Among them, on July 20, the high temperature area above 35 degrees Celsius reached 1.598 million square kilometers, involving 18 provinces (cities, districts), and the high temperature area above 38 degrees Celsius reached 134,000 square kilometers.

"High temperature weather has the greatest impact on the growth of vegetables, especially coriander and spinach, which have a prominent price increase, are most afraid of high temperature." Meng Fanbo said. Lu Hui, a vegetable analyst at Zhuo Chuang Information, said that in addition to high temperature weather, typhoon weather occurred frequently in August, and open-air vegetables were damaged by rain or their growth cycle was prolonged, which pushed up the price of vegetables to some extent.

In Shouguang Agricultural Products Logistics Park, Jia Meirong, a major vegetable operator, told reporters that this year, due to frequent rains, high temperatures and other weather, the amount of vegetables in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia is not large. "Take celery as an example, only 18 cars came to the whole market on the 26 th, but in previous years, how can we get dozens of cars?"

Vegetable prices are expected to stabilize in the near future, and the price of vegetables, meat and eggs is under pressure.

According to the analysis released by the Information Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on the 24th, "it is expected that the price of vegetables will drop after the typhoon". Some vegetable operators also said that the price of vegetables has stabilized recently with the end of rainfall. "The wholesale price of celery has dropped to 3 yuan/kg, which is lower than the high point of 3.6 yuan/kg in the previous two days." Jia Meirong said.

But at the same time, some people in the industry said that with the arrival of the school season, it is difficult for the overall vegetable price to drop significantly. In addition, the disaster in Shouguang, the main vegetable producing area, will also have a certain adverse impact on the supply of vegetables this autumn and even in winter. According to Zhao Xuchun, the mayor of Shouguang City, 106,000 greenhouses in Shouguang were affected by the flood. On the 26th, the reporter learned in an interview in Shouguang that some greenhouses still have deep water. Vegetable farmers said that vegetables such as cucumbers had been planted in the greenhouse before the disaster. "After drainage, the soil inside is still sticky, and it can’t be replanted. It has to be dried for at least 20 days", which will inevitably affect the supply of autumn vegetables.

It is noteworthy that in addition to the rapid increase in vegetable prices, the prices of eggs and pork have also increased significantly recently. Affected by factors such as breeding cycle and high temperature in summer, the price of eggs in many areas has exceeded the "mark" of 10 yuan/kg. According to the monitoring data of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the price of eggs has been rising for six consecutive weeks. In the 34th week of 2018 (August 17 to August 23), the price of eggs was 9.95 yuan/kg, up 9.7% from the previous week and 13.5% year-on-year.

At the same time, pork prices began to rebound continuously. According to the monitoring data of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the price of pork in the 34th week was 19.36 yuan/kg, rising for seven consecutive weeks, 2.77 yuan/kg higher than that in early July. Hu Zhisheng, an expert from Shandong Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Information Center, believes that there have been several African swine fever outbreaks in China. If the subsequent epidemic spreads, it is expected that the pig price will be suppressed in the short term and the time for the pig price to rise from the trough will be shortened in the long term; If the epidemic situation is effectively controlled, the price of pigs may continue to rise.

In view of the insiders, uncertain factors such as swine fever epidemic in the second half of the year may affect the downward cycle of pig prices, and the prices of agricultural and sideline products such as eggs and vegetables also have a strong trend. Under the joint promotion of these factors, CPI may have some upward pressure.