Behind the price surge

In the past, vegetable prices were mainly affected by weather, fertilizer prices and seasonal consumption habits. However, according to experts, insufficient government support combined with China's fast growth, urbanization and rising costs in labor and transportation influenced the recent price hikes.

In Xinfadi market, Beijing's largest wholesale food market, management staff offered some explanations for the price rises.

"Who would grow vegetables anymore when apartments here now sell at 20,000 yuan per square meter," said Bao Yaoxian, a member of management at the market, pointing at a large group of under-construction commodity apartment buildings in the Xinfadi village on the southwest outskirts of Beijing, which used to be farmland for vegetables.

China's fast paced urbanization in recent years has encroached on suburban land used to grow vegetables.

"Vegetable farmland in suburban Beijing is decreasing sharply," said Liu Tong, head of the market's statistics department. "When farmland becomes buildings and growers become consumers, surely the vegetable prices will rise," he said.

Besides urbanization, a lack of government-backed policies also led to reductions in vegetable farmland, as many farmers tend to grow grain and oil crops which have government-set minimum purchasing prices and subsidies for fine seeds.

Also, the rise in labor costs also played a significant role in pushing up vegetable prices, said Liu Yuhui, an economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Unlike producing grain and breeding pigs, the process of growing vegetables can hardly be mechanized because of pollination and grafting. Therefore, the labor-intensive industry is very vulnerable to labor cost rises, said Chen Mingjun, deputy secretary general of the China Vegetable Circulation Association.

As many Chinese farmers have migrated to work in cities, they have to hire help to grow vegetables at home. The wages for help is approximating 100 yuan per month, up almost 100 percent since the beginning of this year, said a farmer from east China's Shandong Province.

Though wages for those who help people grow vegetables have risen, it is still about 75 percent lower than the minimum wage for migrant workers in cities. "It seems the wage for help still has plenty of room to increase, therefore the vegetable prices will not likely decline in the long term," said Liu Tong.

Meanwhile, wholesalers and transporters also complained about the rising costs for fuel, fertilizer and the plastic sheeting and bubble chambers used to protect vegetables, which are feeding through the prices.