The wholesale price of sweet potatoes in the Xinfadi Market recently dropped. The overall supply volume of sweet potatoes is relatively large at the moment. Supply comes from production areas in Kaifeng and Zhoukou in Henan; Jining and surrounding areas in Shandong; as well as Xiong County and Anxing region in Baoding, Hebei.
The overall surface area devoted to sweet potato plantation in major production areas has greatly expanded in recent years. Many production areas have already seen the first signs that sales will become more difficult in the future. The recent decline in the price of sweet potatoes therefore comes as no surprise.
There are several special sweet potato varieties on the market, but even their production volumes have greatly increased in recent years. For example, the Watermelon Red sweet potato, the Purple sweet potato, the Yan sweet potato, and the Honey sweet potato. The wholesale price of these varieties is relatively high at 1.20-2.80 yuan [0.17-0.40 USD] per 0.5 kg, but even so their sales conditions greatly improved in comparison with the previous years. Their retail volumes have also rapidly expanded in recent years.
There are three reasons why the price of these varieties is high: 1. The production volume is small. 2. Seedlings are expensive. 3. The seedlings can only be used for one year or the size, product quality, production volume, and flavor of subsequent harvests will suffer in comparison with the original harvest. In other words, farmers need to purchase new seedlings every year, which is why the price of these sweet potato varieties is quite high.
Source: Jinri Toutiao