The trade price of garlic in the Jinxiang Garlic Market continued to increase last week, but the pace of the price increase lessened. Jinxiang garlic farmers have little garlic left, and even less top-quality garlic. Farmers prefer to hold on to their top-quality garlic and drive the price up until they can also sell medium-quality garlic at decent prices. However, garlic is approaching the season when garlic begins to sprout young shoots and so farmers become more eager to sell their stock.
The slight price increase and trade volume decrease can be explained as follows:
1. The weather was warm and fine last week. The trade volume for export, domestic, and processed garlic increased.
2. The season when traders buy garlic to enter into storage is coming to an end.
3. Autumn has arrived and garlic begins to sprout young shoots. Farmers have little stock left and even less top-quality garlic. They still try to keep the asking price up, but with less enthusiasm as the need to sell off their stock become more urgent.
4. Exporters of processed garlic predominantly buy top-quality garlic, and their purchase volume increased.
5. The garlic processing industry resumed operations on August 20th, and processes a daily volume of more than 6 thousand tons. They mostly purchase from other production areas in China and little from Jinxiang.
Source: Shandong Jinxiang Market