China watermelon prices bounce back up

During the past two weeks, the market price of watermelons in all places continuously began to drop to new depths, last week the price of watermelons in Shandong dropped to 0.4-0.5 RMB per kilo. The melon farmers one by one claimed that they are not making any money, since the price was already cut down beneath the original price.

However, the past two days, the watermelon price showed indications of going back up. Mister Fang, head of a watermelon manufacturing site in Liaoning says: “At this moment, the output of watermelons in Liaoning is the same compared to last year, and the quality is pretty good. The buying price is approximately 1 RMB, we predict that the price will be stable for one or two weeks, until the watermelons produced in open air are ready to be harvested.”

The rising watermelon price is still a result of the reduced watermelon supply at the current domestic market. It is reported that today in all of the regions in China, except for the Northeast, the watermelon harvest season is already coming to an end. At this moment, Liaoning is still in the middle of the watermelon harvest season, and therefore it will become the main production area for the watermelon market supply. Mister Fang says: “the watermelon harvest season in Liaoning will still continue for more than a month. Right now the greenhouse melon is the most important one, if the weather is good and the temperature remains constant, the outdoor grown watermelons can hit the market in 2 weeks. Watermelons from Jilin will hit the market at the end of July or the beginning of August.”

Since Liaoning is currently the only place in China where they are harvesting watermelons, as a result, the watermelon supply is shrinking and the watermelon price is rising. If in two weeks the outdoor grown watermelons will smoothly hit the market, the price might drop to some extent. After July, the domestic watermelon supply will mainly depend on the Northeast.

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