Front-line survey: the price of watermelon is like a roller coaster. Melon farmers have different joys and sorrows.

Changchun, 12 Aug (Xinhua) Watermelon prices are like "roller coaster". Melon farmers have different joys and sorrows.

Xinhua News Agency reporters Li Shuangxi and Lin Hong

Recently, a number of major watermelon producing areas in Jilin Province have experienced a roller coaster-like price fluctuation. Within a few days, it suddenly dropped from 0.4 yuan to 7 cents a jin, thousands of jin of watermelons rotted in the field, and the "old customers" of melon harvesting disappeared. Why fell to 7 cents this year, the reporter interviewed Taonan, Changling, Gongzhuling and other major producing areas of watermelons.

Last year 0.7 yuan, this year 7 cents melon farmers want to cry but no tears

On the 10th, beside the village road of Jinshui Village in Changling County, a trailer loaded with 70,000 jin of watermelons was driven to Xinmin, Liaoning Province. Huang Liu, a 36-year-old melon farmer, has a tearless expression on his face.

Huang Liu has planted a total of 7 hectares of watermelons this year, producing 120000 jin per hectare at a cost of about 30, 000 yuan, which is equivalent to about 0. 25 yuan per jin. However, this year, his early melons were sold in time of seven or eight cents, and lost a total of 150000 yuan.

Huang Liu pointed to the rotten watermelons by the roadside and said that in the past, people still collected the leaks that were sold, but this year there were 30,000 to 40,000 jin thrown.

Jiang Hua, a melon farmer and agent in Gongzhuling, feels similar to him. Last year, customers who collected melons had to pay a deposit of 20,000 yuan, which was sold as high as 0.78 yuan per catty, and no one asked for 7 cents this year.

Jiang Hua has more than 30 "regular customers" who are long-term cooperative merchants from Shandong, Hebei, Zhejiang, Shanghai and other places. Jiang Hua said that in previous years, on July 20, "regular customers" came one after another to harvest melons, but this year there was no one to make phone calls. No one collects watermelons, and the prices of watermelons in Jilin Province continue to fall.

According to the price monitoring of China Haogua Network, before July 28, the price of watermelons in Jilin Province was 0.3 yuan to 0.4 yuan, but after August 2, it generally fell to 0.07 yuan to 0.1 yuan. On August 10, the price rebounded to 0.2-0.25 yuan.

"it's no use coming back. Most of what we grow this year are early melons, which are on the market at the end of July and the beginning of August. There is not much left now. " Huang Liu said that after growing watermelons for more than 10 years, it is the first time that the price of watermelons has been so low.

There is no one to collect it from other places, and the local consumption is limited. Lei Jing, a melon farmer in Shanwan Village, said that a cart of 70,000 jin of melons is sold to the south, two cars a day. If you sell it in the local market, you can't sell a car in 20 days, and you have to rot into the car in the end. For watermelons that are highly dependent on non-local markets, no one collects them, which is tantamount to throwing them all away.

The "old customers" are helpless all over the place.

"many, I have never seen so many watermelons, everywhere." A Liaoning Xinmin buyer leaned against the car and said helplessly.

According to reports, the purchase of watermelons will be carried out from south to north every year. A few years ago, early melons made money and late melons lost money. this year, farmers all over the country rushed to plant early melons. In addition, Jilin Province suffered wind and hail disasters to varying degrees in June, delaying the ripening period of watermelons, resulting in the listing of many early melons at the same time, and prices plummeted.

"many 'old customers' stay in Liaoning and Inner Mongolia to catch melons, while Jilin, which is farther away, has no interest." Xinmin purchaser said.

Secondly, due to the decline in corn prices, Jilin Province reduced the planting area of corn and changed to cash crops. Many farmers have set their sights on watermelons that made a lot of money in the past few years.

Wang Dahua, manager of Dahua seed industry in Changling County, said that a box of watermelon seeds can grow 1 mu of land. A total of 4000 boxes of seeds were sold last year, but this year it has reached 10, 000 boxes, equivalent to an increase of 60% of the acreage.

"many new melon farmers lack sales channels and have no 'old customers'. When Zaogua is on the market, they look everywhere for agents to sell on their behalf, which also lowers the market price." Jiang Hua said.

Master the market and Zhejiang melon farmers are not worried about selling.

43 hectares of melon land is a vast expanse of Guahai. Pan Xiaochun, a melon farmer in Rui'an, Zhejiang Province, who rents this piece of melon land in Changling County, is very calm about the rise and fall of melon prices.

Pan Xiaochun, who has been a "regular customer" for 35 years and sells watermelons from the northeast to Wenzhou, Jiaxing and Jinhua in Zhejiang Province, is growing melons for the first year, but he is not worried about losing money at low prices.

"my biggest capital is not melon-growing skills, but the market." Pan Xiaochun said that when many melon farmers can't find "regular customers" and can only dump watermelons for seven or eight cents, they can directly load and sell watermelons to Zhejiang, with an average land price of 0.6 yuan per jin, and can earn 0.2 yuan after removing transportation costs.

Pan Xiaochun's second experience is to bet on different periods of time. In May this year, he saw that melon farmers everywhere were planting early melons, worried that they would be cheap, so he only planted about 5 hectares, and the rest planted late melons. "I still have more than 30 hectares of late melons to sell, so I can catch up with the good price."

Pan Xiaochun said that due to the long sales channels and high degree of marketization of watermelons, various agents in the middle formed a large group, earning commission fees and "eating" a lot of farmers' profits. Therefore, having a direct sales channel and no middleman to earn the price difference is the magic weapon to gain even this year. (end)