A price slump has followed a good harvest of Chinese cabbages in Beijing, Shandong, and other provinces and cities since the beginning of this month.
The wholesale price of Chinese cabbage has fallen to as low as 0.12 yuan (2 US cents) a kilogram in North China, much to the dismay of the vegetable's growers, according to the latest issue of China Times, a Beijing-based business weekly.
The retail price of the vegetable, which was 0.8 yuan per kilogram on Nov 4, has now bottomed out at about 0.3 yuan per kilogram.
The growers are so discouraged that some of them have given up harvesting these vegetables, choosing instead to let them rot in the fields.
"If you want Chinese cabbages, come and pick in my fields — for free!" Mrs Zhao, a Chinese cabbage grower in South Beijing's Daxing district, was quoted as saying in the China Times report.
Wholesalers are also feeling the pinch.
"We buy from the growers at a price of 0.12 yuan per kilogram and sell them to greengrocers at 0.24 yuan," said a Chinese cabbages sales manager, named Zhang, in Shouguang, Shandong province.
He said he can make hardly any money after deducting the costs of labor, transportation and packing.
Greengrocers have much to complain about, too.
Yu Zhifen, who is in her 50s and sells vegetables at a market in the Hepingli community of Beijing's Dongcheng district, said the low profit of the cabbage business is upsetting.
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