Mainland officials are dealing with a tough balancing act: cracking down on price rises to curb inflation while also starting a campaign against the sagging prices of farm produce to stave off rural discontentment.
The agriculture and commerce ministries have asked local watchdogs to help farmers sell produce such as cabbages and celery, which suffered poor sales in some parts of the country in the past few weeks.
Yet prices in the retail market remain high - the result of rising transport costs and fees at vegetable markets, experts say.
Average prices for green beans dropped 15.5 per cent in 50 cities from April 11 to Wednesday compared with the first 10 days of this month, the National Bureau of Statistics said on its website yesterday. In addition, cucumber prices fell 11.5 per cent, celery prices dropped 6.5 per cent and tomato prices declined 2.3 per cent.
Frustration over low prices has prompted vegetable farmers in Beijing, Shanghai and in Shandong, Zhejiang and Henan provinces to dump hundreds of thousands of kilograms of cabbages, celery and other produce.
In Jinan, Shandong, an oversupply of cabbage caused prices to fall to just 20 fen (12 HK cents) a kilogram from last year's two yuan.
