Chinese garlic farmers are currently in the middle of the main harvest season, and they are working as hard as possible to produce high-quality garlic. This year’s harvest is expected to bring in better earnings than last season, with prices averaging about Rmb6.0 per kg, compared with Rmb2.4 per kg previously.
Expect smaller amounts of garlic
The harvest has not been smooth. Due to the cold weather in April, the total planted area was reduced by 10-15%, which resulted in the garlic becoming smaller. The proportion of 65mm garlic is particularly low at 5%, while the proportion of 60mm garlic is down 10% from last season. In contrast, 55 mm garlic makes up 65% of the crop, with the remaining 20% made up of 50 mm and 45 mm sized garlic.
In addition, the quality of this year’s garlic is not as good as last season, missing a layer of skin, which may affect its high-quality pre-packaging in European supermarkets and increase packaging costs in the future.
Despite these challenges, farmers are making progress. In good weather, all garlic is bagged and harvested and dried in the field before being rooted and sold. At the same time, factories and storage facilities have also started operating at the start of the harvest season to take advantage of the expected good year.
New crops are expected to start at higher food prices, but then prices will slowly rise due to high purchasing costs for farmers. In addition, the market price may still fall in a few weeks, as there are still 1.3 million tons of old garlic cold storage. At present, the old garlic market is weak, the new garlic market is hot, and the speculation behavior of speculators has contributed to the volatility of the market.
The final harvest will become clear in the coming weeks, and it remains to be seen whether prices can remain high.
Post time: Jun-15-2023