Agricultural products have suffered from "slow sales disease" for years. The more harvest, the heavier the loss.

Recently, the phenomenon of unsalable watermelons has appeared in many parts of the country, and melon farmers have encountered the embarrassing predicament of "the more the harvest, the heavier the loss". In the face of the strange circle of unmarketable agricultural products that have appeared in successive years, apart from complaining about the unfavorable weather, what is the crux of the "unmarketable disease"? If you work hard but it is difficult to recover the cost, who will protect the interests of farmers?

Current situation: watermelons are unsalable in many places in the middle of summer

Since June, Dangshan, a big fruit county in Anhui Province, has encountered large-scale unsalable watermelons. This year, due to the continuous rainy weather, the export of watermelons has been affected, Dangshan 200000 mu of watermelons worry about the market. Since the watermelons were concentrated on the market at the end of May, the prices of watermelons have plummeted, and the purchase price has dropped from more than 1 yuan per catty in the same period last year to two or three cents per catty.

Large, sweet and crisp watermelons are rotten in the field and thrown by the roadside. The painstaking cultivation of melon farmers is faced with the embarrassment of "the more the harvest, the greater the loss."

In fact, not only in Dangshan, Anhui, but since the beginning of summer this year, "difficulty in selling melons" has appeared in many places throughout the country almost at the same time.

Enter "watermelon unsalable" into the online search engine to search, and since May, the unsalable phenomenon of watermelons publicly reported by the media has appeared in Guangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, Shandong, Hebei, Liaoning and other places. As a summer fruit, watermelons are not sold frequently from south to north across the country.

It is not only watermelons that suffer from widespread unsalability. Recently, a number of media have focused on the news that "Shaanxi fruit growers dump nectarines".

Lanmeiyuan Village, Zhuyu Town, Zhouzhi County, Shaanxi Province is a well-known nectarine production base. Almost every family in this village grows nectarine trees, and nectarines are also the main source of income for fruit farmers. But this year the nectarine is ripe, but few merchants come to buy it, and the price is less than 1/3 in previous years. The fruit growers have no choice but to pour the unsalable nectarines into the river at the head of the village.

Over a longer period of time, in March this year, nearly 1 million jin of tribute pears were unsalable in Liquan County, Shaanxi Province; in April, Cangnan, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, one of the main tomato producing areas in China, suffered a large area of unsalable tomatoes; in May, Changfeng in Anhui Province suffered unsalable strawberries, resulting in a county-wide loss of more than 150 million yuan. In the same month, one million jin of bayberry in Nanan, Fujian Province was unsalable.

In recent years, the unsalable sale of agricultural products seems to have been a "long-standing problem" in recent years. On the one hand, the "high-yield" farmers look sad and have no joy of a "bumper harvest", while on the other hand, people in the cities complain that the prices of fruits and vegetables in the vegetable markets around them are too expensive, and it is difficult to get rid of the strange circle that "it is difficult for farmers to sell and citizens to buy expensive".

Probe into the cause: what is the crux of the "unmarketable disease"?

In view of the unsalable phenomenon of watermelons in many places recently, some industry insiders said that it is difficult to sell watermelons this year, mainly due to the low temperature in the southern spring this year, resulting in late ripening of watermelons in Hainan, Guangxi and other places, which is close to the listing time of watermelons in Anhui and Shandong, and watermelons in many places are listed in piles, resulting in an oversupply of watermelons. In addition, since May, cloudy and rainy weather is common across the country, especially in the northeast, the weather is cool, and consumer demand for watermelons has decreased.

However, for the problem of unmarketable agricultural products that occurs almost every year, apart from "the weather is not beautiful", what are the deep reasons for the frequent incidents of "cheap fruit hurting farmers"?

Among the ways of solving the unsalable agricultural products in recent years, the emergency measures of government departments, the promotion of the media and the spread of love of netizens in new media such as Weibo and Wechat have become effective channels to solve the problem, but in the long run, what is the fundamental way to eradicate the strange circle of unsalable agricultural products?

"there are many reasons for the unmarketable of agricultural products, including 'seasonal centralized listing of agricultural products, oversupply in the market', frequent fluctuations in the prices of agricultural products, asymmetry in production and marketing information resulting in following the trend of planting, 'single varieties of fruits and vegetables, low quality leads to low market competitiveness, and so on." Li Yiping, a professor at the School of Economics of Renmin University of China, analyzed to Chinanews.com.

According to expert analysis, in developed countries where agricultural production is highly specialized and on a large scale, the frequency of unmarketable agricultural products is relatively small, while the current decentralized production and management mode of one household in China is easy to cause a strange cycle of "unsalable, difficult to sell, and expensive to buy" agricultural products.

Li Yiping said: the prices of agricultural products fluctuate frequently and the cycle is relatively short. When the prices of a kind of fruits and vegetables rise rapidly, small and scattered farmers will expand their planting scale, chase high prices, converge in planting products, in addition, information is blocked, and the market market is misjudged. This will plant hidden dangers for unsalable products and falling prices.

As experts say, due to the decentralized operation of farmers, the agricultural market can not accurately predict the yield and provide effective market information to guide farmers to plant, which leads to the uncertainty of supply and demand of agricultural products has become a normal, unsalable agricultural products will occur frequently.

It is also rooted in the decentralized operation of one household, and the weak position in the market always makes it difficult for farmers to get the price say.

"there are too many links in the circulation of agricultural products, and middlemen have increased prices from the countryside to the urban vegetable market, squeezing the interests of farmers on the one hand, and on the other hand, people in the city cannot eat cheap fruits and vegetables." Li Yiping said.

Solve the problem: who will solve the problem of farmers'"unmarketable urgency"?

In recent years, in order to solve the "unsalable urgency" encountered by farmers, government departments have mostly adopted emergency measures such as urgently contacting merchants and issuing documents to dredge circulation channels to meet their urgent needs. In some places, there are even "strange tricks" such as mayor street promotion and listing to set up a "watermelon office."

Just recently, due to the unsalable and broken capital chain of local chickens in Jiange County, Sichuan Province, each employee of administrative and public institutions in the county was asked to buy 20 chickens, regardless of size, 60 yuan each. Tasks totaling 1200 yuan will be deducted one-time from year-end performance pay. This practice of "apportion" unmarketable agricultural products by administrative means has also been questioned by public opinion.

"in the face of unmarketable agricultural products, the government can neither be absent nor offside. The problem that originated in the market should be solved by market means. what the government should do is the role of 'service', not the role of 'command'. " Li Yiping said.

Li Yiping said that some places blindly focus on the construction of characteristic agricultural parks and encourage or even force farmers to expand their planting areas without a detailed analysis of the market, resulting in oversupply. These are all negative cases of administrative intervention in the production and marketing of agricultural products.

"on the issue of unmarketable agricultural products, of course, government departments cannot stand idly by. The government should build a supply and marketing information platform to reduce intermediate links and guide farmers to connect with the market." Li Yiping said.

According to the analysis of experts, it has become a trend to strengthen the release of market information on agricultural products through the Internet platform, and to build an e-commerce platform to broaden the sales channels of agricultural products. However, in the current process of urbanization, most of China's rural population structure is "old and small". The information process of agriculture needs more services from the government.

In addition, through policies such as taxation and insurance, as well as more measures to simplify administration and delegate powers, we can "remove obstacles" to reduce the intermediate links in the production and marketing of agricultural products, and ensure the interests of growers in all aspects of production, circulation and sales.

In the long run, in the "pulse of consultation" of the strange circle of unmarketable agricultural products, it seems that it has become a permanent cure to integrate the current small-scale peasant economy into a market-oriented enterprise economy and industrial economy as soon as possible, so as to enhance the ability to resist risks. However, by getting rid of the decentralized management model and improving the scale and specialization of agriculture, it still needs a profound change in China's rural economy.