What are the factors in the rise of the "vegetable basket" to promote "every festival must rise?"

After experiencing price fluctuations like “roller coaster” in 2011, we have ushered in the New Year’s Spring Festival consumption under the high CPI background. How is the price of "vegetable basket" this spring? The Spring Festival is one of the periods when the price of food fluctuates the most. How far is the “Spring Festival for the Cheap” from the people? The reporter conducted a follow-up survey.

The "vegetable basket" rose 3 yuan a pound of green vegetables, 5 yuan a catty of celery, 8 yuan a catty of eggplant ... ... the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission announced during the holiday season "part of the farmers market, the main vegetable species price announcement", specifically with red The fonts label the "most expensive" products in the middle of the city's various vegetable markets.

The data shows that the vegetable prices of the New Year's Day rose almost all the way from the previous week. The increase in vegetables, celery, spinach, cucumber, green peppers, and Chinese cabbage both exceeded 20%, and the price of only the eggs in 15 major commodities declined slightly. Many citizens feel that they must cook at home to invite relatives and friends to eat. The "basket" is not light.

Ms. Zhang, who works in Beijing, also feels that the “rising price” of the Chinese New Year’s dish prices. She said, “The 6th visit to the supermarket to buy a la carte, organic small ribs to 37 yuan a pound, the original 30 yuan less. The year before 1 yuan 1 kg The vegetables were sold for 3 yuan, and some seasonal vegetables even turned several times."

The Spring Festival is China's most important and longest-running festival. From the young age to the last 20 days of Lantern Festival, it is the peak of consumption. The rise in the price of agricultural products has become the law for many years. With a large number of employees returning home for the New Year, there are fewer vendors selling vegetables during the Spring Festival to the fifteenth.

Price filing, establishment of affordable supermarkets, expansion of vegetable cultivation area, and prioritization of food and vegetables before the festival... At the request of the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments, Jiangxi, Anhui, Qinghai, Ningxia, Heilongjiang, and Jiangsu Provinces proposed before the Spring Festival, according to local market conditions. And control needs, timely delivery of local reserves of grain and oil, to ensure that the finished grain, oil, vegetable market supply continues to stall, not out of stock, to maintain basic stable grain and oil market prices.

However, some members of the public still report that for a long period of time during the Spring Festival, the price of vegetables has risen sharply. Some ordinary families are “tight,” while families with hardship and those with low-income families “can’t afford it”.

Tang Jianwei, senior manager of the Research Department of the Bank of Communications, said that due to various factors such as production cycle, information asymmetry, and hot money speculation, the growth rate of food prices has been repeatedly turned up and down during the past 10 years, almost during the Spring Festival. It is one of the periods when food prices fluctuate the most in the year.

Who is pushing for "every festival must rise?"

The relevant person in charge of the National Bureau of Statistics Jiangsu Survey Corps said that from the statistical data, the price of vegetables in the first half of January was significantly higher than the same period in December, and it is expected that the increase rate in the second half of the month will be even more pronounced. People cannot help but ask: What are the factors that are driving the price of agricultural products to "Spring Festival must rise?"

The first is that from the perspective of the laws of economics, the most direct reason for the price increase at a specific time is the change in supply and demand. During the Spring Festival, the needs of the people have experienced a certain degree of blowout. Everyone needs to concentrate on buying new products, including the most basic ones. Foods," said Xu Guoxiang, director of the Center for Applied Statistics Research at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

Second, on the supply side, from the vendors in the market to farmers in the fields, they will return home for the New Year. Although large supermarkets and shopping malls still maintain supply during the Spring Festival, the supply of the entire market is still less than usual, and the supply is insufficient and then transmitted to terminal prices.

Second, due to seasonal factors, the introduction of agricultural and sideline products into the winter was originally the stage of price increase. During the Spring Festival, many regions in China suffer from rain, snow and cold weather, and the high cost of vegetable production and operation supports the price of vegetables.

The factors of market circulation price management should not be overlooked. Since the prices of most agricultural and sideline products have already been marketized, the country only implements guiding prices for a few important agricultural products such as grain, and the pricing power is often in the hands of retailers in wholesale markets and farmers' markets. When the Spring Festival market is in short supply, it is strange that vegetable traders jointly raise prices. "Even if the vegetables are sold at 10 yuan and 1 kg, the people have to buy it for the holidays."

Fourth, the impact of returning to the countryside on the Spring Festival has led to a serious shortage of labor in the short term. The sudden increase in labor costs has had a large impact on commodity prices. Yu Nanping, a researcher at the East China Normal University Institute of International Relations and Regional Development, said that from the point of view of developed countries, although they also have festivals with long periods of Christmas and consumer concentration, there is no large-scale flow of people, and basic commodities are especially Food supply is basically systemic, often using factory-based distribution methods, and mostly finished or semi-finished products. There will be no significant price fluctuations on holidays.

In contrast, the special phenomenon of large-scale labor movements in the country during the Spring Festival has caused labor costs to rise; the supply system has been decentralized, not centralized management, resulting in higher cost of purchases; in addition, employees of general enterprises have triple wage protection during the Spring Festival holidays, and most rely on price compensation to reflect The value of holiday overtime, so prices soared.

Strengthen Agricultural Super Matchmaking: Relieve Festival "Abnormal Fluctuations"

In accordance with the general law, post-holiday prices will have a process of returning to normal. However, it is not possible to relax the measures taken to stabilize the prices of the Spring Festival. It is even more important not to lower the overall price increase, and to lighten up the holiday price increase.

Experts believe that almost every year during the Spring Festival, the prices of agricultural and sideline products have risen sharply, and the retail sector has gone up more and more outrageously than the wholesale sector. The reason is that the capacity of direct supply of agricultural products to the cities is weak and the system is not perfect.

Retail now depends on the farmers' market, and the majority of small vegetable vendors are foreigners. The large number of booths in the Spring Festival is out of business, causing supply to fall short of demand. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the construction of a direct supply system for agricultural and sideline products.

Zhang Chuanxi, vice president of the Jiangsu Garlic Industry Association, said that now the urban population is growing faster, and the rate of vegetable land around the city is also decreasing. It is difficult to satisfy the market demand by relying solely on rural areas to supply agricultural and sideline products. However, the connection between the urban farmer's market and the rural production base is relatively loose and does not solve the problem of “difficulties in buying and selling”. The intensity of docking between the agricultural super market and the market and the production base cannot be effectively solved, and large fluctuations in vegetable prices will also occur.

In the investigation, the reporter learned that in order to stabilize prices and protect the “basket of food” of the public, the practice of increasing the opening of affordable shopping malls in some places is worth promoting. Guangdong plans to build 3,000 this year, and Jiangsu built 773 cheap supermarkets last year. These "parity stores" and "parity supermarkets" reduce agricultural and sideline product prices through government subsidies, production, and docking, and their sales prices are generally more than 15% lower than the prices in the surrounding markets.

Relevant experts proposed that we must rely on agricultural circulation organizations and farmers' professional cooperatives to build affordable shops for agricultural and sideline products, reduce circulation, and effectively stabilize the prices of agricultural products.