Garlic reveals root of farmers’ woes

BECAUSE OF A GARLIC GLUT, farmers in Ninglang and Yongsheng, two poverty-stricken counties in Southwest China’s Yunnan province, complained they had 5,000 tons of garlic they were unable to sell. On hearing the news, some e-commerce companies took the initiative to help the farmers sell their garlic online. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

This year, because of the enlargement of the planting scale, there was a large surfeit of garlic production, with the price dropping from 5 yuan ($0.79) to 0.7 yuan per kilogram. The involvement of the e-commerce companies meets the farmers’ needs. For instance, JD.com sold 120 tons of garlic in the first 24 hours, which has helped the farmers to minimize their losses.

Hopefully, the e-commerce companies can take the opportunity to expand their operations and market in the less-developed inland areas, and so connect consumers directly with farmers via the internet. However, the internet will not be a panacea for all the woes of farmers.

County governments should not ignore their role in providing necessary guidance to farmers, suggesting what they should plant next year, according to changes in the market. The governments are generally in a better place than farmers to follow and analyze market information and thus their forecasts about the following year’s changes in demand should be more accurate than that of the farmers.

If some agricultural produce was expensive this year, it is almost certain that more farmers will grow it next year, and the price of the produce will plummet immediately after the harvest. The price fluctuations year to year only leave room for speculators, as they harm the interests of both consumers and farmers.

To put an end to the vicious cycle, the grassroots governments must take the lead in resolving the information asymmetry between the demand and the supply sides.