Chinanews, Beijing, October 26 – Beijingers have the habit of preserving a large quantity of Chinese cabbages for winter. This year, they are surprised to find that the price of Chinese cabbages has increased nearly 900% from last year. Averagely the wholesale price of Chinese cabbages in Beijing is 1.05 yuan per kilo, while the price last year was only 0.1 yuan per kilo. The price hike started early this month, when Chinese cabbages were sold at 0.6 yuan per kilo. Currently, a kilo of good-quality Chinese cabbage costs no less than 1.3 yuan at the retailers’. Last year, there were too many farmers growing Chinese cabbages, and quite a large proportion of them suffered a great loss due to the low price. Thus only very few farmers grow Chinese cabbages this year. The wide supply-demand gap should be blamed for the price hike. This year, the sown acreage of Chinese cabbage fields in Beijing alone is 10.1% smaller, not to mention that the farmers in Hebei Province, one of the major vegetable suppliers to Beijing, have also cut the growth of Chinese cabbages.
