Chapter 4 Chapter 03 Why Our Vegetables Are So Expensive
"Miraculous doctor" fades, why does Zhang Wuben appear?
You Zhang Wuben can see it, but those imperial physicians who used to be the emperor didn't understand?
What is the essence of agricultural products being stir-fried?
So what am I calling for?Call on the government to start arresting people, arresting them.Why arrest?Because it's called a monopoly.
The advent of economic changes calls for a new agricultural strategy.
The common combination of industrial chain and anti-monopoly law.Its final real purpose is to give our ordinary consumers the most stable retail price.
Our Hunan Satellite TV is very good. It has produced "Super Girl", "Fast Girl", and now Comrade Zhang Wuben. On February 1, 2010, Mr. Zhang Wuben talked about health preservation broadcast on Hunan Satellite TV's "Encyclopedia", ranking among the top three with the highest ratings at the same time in history.It is said that many people sit in front of the TV at a fixed time, waiting to watch his talk show.Comrade Zhang Wuben wrote a book called, which has sold 3 million copies.Of course, you may ask me, Professor Lang, are you criticizing Zhang Wuben because of jealousy?I have to admit there is a point.The sales of my books are only about one-tenth of his. In this respect, there is indeed a big gap between me and him.
I found that this person was actually very interesting, and I wanted to laugh when I heard what he said. A reporter from "Life Times" came to the Wuben Hall at the southwest gate of the Olympic Center on May 12, 2010, and found that he was the only expert who was attending the clinic.The price of the appointment number has increased from two to three hundred in the past to two thousand at that time, which has doubled several times, and it has been scheduled until the end of the year.How did he advise these people who paid a lot of money?He suggested eating more mung beans.This suggestion is so interesting that even mung beans have been touched by Zhang Wuben, and the price has been soaring all the way.
After rapidly gaining popularity with the help of powerful media and winning many titles such as "Miracle Doctor", "The Most Popular Health Expert in 2010", "The Most Expensive Chinese Medicine Doctor in Beijing", Zhang Wuben is now falling from the altar at a faster speed. On June 1, 2010, Wuben Hall, located at the southwest gate of the Beijing Olympic Sports Center, where Zhang Wuben practiced, began to be demolished after being classified as an illegal building.The book written by Zhang Wuben, which once ranked No. 1 in major book rankings, was taken off the shelves of bookstores across the country, and Hunan Satellite TV’s TV program "Encyclopedia", which made Zhang Wuben so popular, also stopped broadcasting on June 7.Zhang Wuben became popular due to the media, but now he is caught in a public opinion storm launched by the media to crusade against Zhang Wuben and Zhang Wuben's phenomenon.What's more interesting is that some people noticed that in the first half of 2010, the agricultural products represented by mung beans started to rise sharply after Zhang Wuben strongly advocated the health benefits of mung beans, and after Zhang Wuben was attacked, the prices of these agricultural products began to fall again. , What did Zhang Wuben say?Is there a link between his claims and rising farm prices? What happened to the price rise of agricultural products in the first half of 2010?
Zhang Wuben's health regimen is low cost, easy to learn, and this set of diet therapy ideas without taking medicine is also very interesting. The most famous one is "Mung Bean Theory". He said that mung bean can not only treat myopia, diabetes, high blood pressure, but also tumor.Therefore, mung beans have become a must-buy item for many consumers, ranging from three to five catties to dozens of catties, and the price is constantly being pushed up.Some stall owners even said that the rise in the price of mung beans was all thanks to Zhang Wuben.According to media reports, a certain brand of mung bean and licorice soup sold in the name of Zhang Wuben has sold for 138 yuan, and a bottle of black beans soaked in vinegar is priced at 38 yuan. It has just been launched for half a month, and 100 bottles can be sold every day. It has become the company's best-selling product, all because everyone wants to keep in good health.Have you ever wondered what happened to this society?This simple deception can fool people around.Readers, please think about it, each of us has a different constitution, how can there be one medicine that can cure all diseases?By the way, mung beans are not considered medicine, but food.If it is food, it is even more impossible.Could it be that if we all ate mung beans in the past, wouldn’t we be called the “sick man of East Asia”?Could it be that if we all eat mung beans, we won't have any diseases anymore?And readers, please think about it again, even the simple medical theory that you Zhang Wuben can see, can't the emperor's imperial physicians, Hua Tuo and other famous doctors not see it?How can you invent a product that can cure all diseases once you eat it?This is obviously nonsense.And I can tell everyone that as long as it is said that it can cure all diseases, it must be a lie.But this kind of thing can deceive ordinary people in China.Why?It is mainly caused by the ignorance of our Chinese people in medicine.According to the survey conducted by the Ministry of Health in 2009, the overall level of health literacy among Chinese residents is only 6.48%. This low level of medical literacy is the only reason why Zhang Wuben's theory can be rampant.But I don’t want to talk about him anymore. I want to use him as an introduction to talk about an interesting topic. Let’s talk about the mung beans he recommended and the garlic we are very concerned about. I want to talk to you about how two different types of produce are being manipulated.One is storable and one is non-storable.The ones that can be stored include garlic, mung beans, black beans, peppers, etc., and the ones that cannot be stored are green vegetables. Let’s talk about why these storable products are manipulated first.It generally has three premises. First premise: it's a very humble product.If it is rice, it will not work. If the price of rice increases by 5% or 10%, the regulatory authorities will immediately come forward to suppress it.But the regulatory authorities will not pay attention to things like garlic that explode when cooking, nor will they pay attention to mung beans for mung bean soup. The second premise: You can only open a position in the year when the output drops sharply. For example, garlic and mung beans are both opened in 2009.Why?Taking 2008 as an example, the export of our Chinese garlic to Japan was restricted, so these garlic were sold back to China, which impacted the domestic market as a result. The price of garlic in 2008 was 1 yuan per kilogram, which led to an overall decline in the planting area of garlic in 2009.For example, Shandong Jinxiang has dropped by one-third. In 2009, the planting area in Shandong decreased by 30%, and that in Henan decreased by 50%. Moreover, due to the abnormal climate, Shandong, the main garlic producing area, experienced a cold spring, and there was even snow in the south of Shandong in April, so the garlic output dropped sharply.The same is true for Green Mutual. The price in 2007 was particularly good, so in 2008 our farmers planted a large number of mung beans, and the price dropped when there were more mung beans, so in 2009 they stopped planting.It just happened that the weather was abnormal again. There was a severe drought in the Northeast, and the number of mung beans that could be planted decreased by 29%. Therefore, many farmers abandoned beans and turned to other crops.Therefore, whether it is garlic or mung beans, it happened that the production volume dropped sharply at the beginning of 2009, and the price was extremely cheap, so speculators began to build positions at this time. In the first half of 2010, the prices of agricultural and sideline products such as garlic, vegetables, and mung beans rose sharply, which aroused various worries and speculations about prices among the public.Among these agricultural products, garlic bears the brunt.In just half a year, the price of garlic has risen by more than 10 times.In addition, the retail price of mung beans has also risen from about 7 yuan per kilogram in 2009 to about 20 yuan per kilogram, and some mung beans even sold for 24 yuan per kilogram, an increase of up to 300%.The rise in the price of agricultural products has given birth to new online vocabulary, "garlic you ruthless", "beans you play", "corn crazy", "spicy and overpowering", are used by netizens to describe the market prices of garlic, miscellaneous grains, corn and pepper respectively.According to the monitoring of the Agricultural Products Wholesale Market Information Network of the Ministry of Agriculture, from December 2009 to April 2010, the national vegetable basket wholesale price index has been running at a high level above 160 points, an increase of about 12 points year-on-year; the average price of 28 kinds of vegetables under key monitoring is per kilogram 3.51 yuan, 0.84 yuan higher than the same period last year, an increase of 31.5%. The sharp rise in prices of agricultural products in the first half of 2010 was related to man-made manipulations, so how did such manipulations take place?
The third premise: the place of origin must be particularly concentrated for easy acquisition.The area circled in Figure 3-1 is the main producing area of garlic. For example, Jinxiang, Shandong has 600,000 mu, accounting for 60% of the national output; Zhongmu, Henan has 400,000 mu, accounting for 30% of the national garlic export volume. Garlic The origin is very concentrated.Relatively speaking, mung bean production areas are also very concentrated, basically in the west of Heilongjiang Province, the northwest of Jilin Province, and the east of Inner Mongolia. See the circles in Figure 3-2. Building a warehouse can also be divided into several steps.
Figure 3-1 Origin of garlic
Figure 3-2 Origin of mung beans
The first song: Be sure to control the upstream.The cost of controlling the upstream is not large. Figure 3-3 shows the garlic price chart from November 21, 2008 to May 25, 2010. In 2008, the highest price of garlic was about 1 yuan per kilogram. In 2009, the output dropped sharply, and the price of garlic fell to 40 cents per kilogram, and speculators quickly built positions.Let's do a simple calculation to see how much money is needed to manipulate the entire market. In 2009, Shandong Jinxiang’s inventory was 950,000 tons. If it was placed in the warehouse from February to May 2009, the price can be controlled by controlling 1/3: 300,000 tons multiplied by 40 cents per kilogram, that is to say, you It only costs 120 million yuan, which can be said to be very cheap.In the end, how many times did the readers know? 4 cents a kilogram of garlic, and finally sold for 12 yuan a kilogram, much better than playing stocks.So I suggest that stockholders stop speculating in stocks in the future, and just fry garlic.
Figure 3-3 Garlic price chart
The second step: control the middle and lower reaches.After the upstream is built, you also have to control the midstream and downstream. Why?Please think about it, what if the upstream position is ready to be sold?In case the sell-off is picked up by the downstream and they are all bought out for you, how do you suppress the price?What if you want to buy it all?Before you buy, the downstream may buy for you first, and this is not okay.Therefore, we must let the downstream and the midstream listen to the words of the upstream.Immediately after the completion of upstream warehouse building, enter the second step to control the middle and lower reaches.How to control the middle and lower reaches?Engage in agents, first-level distributors, second-level distributors, third-level distributors or agents.You charge very expensive agency fees and distribution fees to each level of distributors, which is actually equivalent to a deposit.Do you dare to be disobedient?If you are disobedient, I will fix you and deduct your security deposit.Speculators use this method of margin to strictly control the entire industrial chain of the upper, middle and lower reaches.
The third step: public opinion building momentum.Take Figure 3-3 as an example. In September 2009, public opinion was mobilized to hype up the concept of influenza A and push up the price. In October, public opinion continued to build momentum, including saying that garlic is a natural medicine to improve immunity; eating garlic can reduce the chance of catching a cold by two-thirds, so it is recommended to eat raw garlic every day; in 2009, the area of garlic planted in Shandong decreased by 20%, etc., Raise the price again.
The fourth step: counter-knocking.Just like the stock market.How to knock it?These speculators took out 20% of the goods and sold them to their own people. They knocked back and forth between October and November 2009 to increase the price.Finally, in April and May of 2010, the price of garlic was raised to the price of pork, and I immediately cashed out and left the market, allowing later funds to take over.
After talking about garlic, I will talk about mung beans. In fact, the hype of the two is the same.Figure 3-4 is the mung bean price chart from November 11, 2008 to May 30, 2010.Readers can see from the picture that the four steps of stir-frying garlic are also used in stir-frying mung beans.
Figure 3-4 Price chart of mung bean
The first step is to build a warehouse upstream.Take Figure 3-4 as an example. In February 2009, when 1 kg of mung beans cost 4 yuan, speculators began to build positions, which was similar to garlic, and about 200 million yuan could control the market.
The second step: control the middle and lower reaches.Like garlic, engage in agents, first-level distributors, second-level distributors, third-level distributors or agents, and strictly control the entire industrial chain of the upper, middle and lower reaches.
The third step: manufacturing concept. At the end of 2009, public opinion began to build momentum, including the severe drought in the southwest and northeast, the reduction of mung bean production, and the surge in demand for mung bean in Japan, etc., and the price of mung bean was gradually raised.On February 1, 2010, when the price of mung beans fell, Zhang Wuben began to boast about the medical efficacy of mung beans on Hunan Satellite TV. Since then, the price of mung beans has been soaring.Therefore, it is really hard for us to believe that Zhang Wuben is innocent. It is precisely because of his intervention that the downward trend of mung beans has been changed to a sharp rise.
The fourth step: counter-knocking.As shown in Figure 3-4, in April 2010, mung bean speculators bought and sold their own products, fueling the flames, thus raising the price of mung beans again.After May 2010, mung bean speculators began to cash out.
In the price increase of agricultural products in the first half of 2010, not only online words such as "garlic you ruthless" and "bean you play" emerged, but with the rise of fruits and vegetables, the terms "vegetable slave" and "fruit slave" also emerged. spread like wildfire.According to a survey by the relevant media at the end of May, there are nearly 20 kinds of vegetables in the vegetable market, and at least one-third of the vegetables ask for more than 4 yuan per catty, and vegetables below 1 yuan per catty are almost extinct. The vegetable market has officially entered the market. The "Yuan Era" of the unit.According to the latest data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the CPI rose by 2.8% in April, and agricultural and sideline products were one of the main driving factors. Among them, the price of fresh vegetables rose by 24.9%, and the price of fresh fruits rose by 16.4%, pushing up the CPI by about 1.9% percent.If it is said that there is still a sufficient hype cycle for speculation on varieties that are easy to store, such as garlic and mung beans, which is conducive to capital trading, then what kind of tactics will capital manipulation adopt for varieties that are not easy to store, such as fresh fruits and vegetables? ?
But what about the rising prices of non-storable vegetables? In December 2008, Chinese cabbage in Ruzhou, Henan Province cost 6 cents a kilogram, or even 10 yuan per cart. If it couldn’t be sold, it would rot in the market. Readers often see this, right?But in 2010 the situation was very different.Take the wholesale price of tomatoes in Shanghai as an example (Figure 3-5). On May 6, 2010, it was 3 yuan per catty. On May 7, it rose to 4 yuan, and on May 13 it fell to 2.5 yuan. How did the price change so quickly?Figure 3-6 shows the price of beans in Fuzhou (Yafeng) Vegetable Wholesale Market. It was 5 yuan on May 12, 7 yuan on May 14, 5 yuan on May 17, and fell to 5 yuan on May 24. To 3.4 yuan, this price fluctuation is almost the same as the stock price, why?Because basically it's all about manipulation. According to our recent research, some vegetable growers and vendors say that selling vegetables is like trading in stocks recently.Take the tomatoes in the Shanghai Agricultural Products Wholesale Market in Figure 3-5 and the beans in the Yafeng Vegetable Market in Fuzhou in Figure 3-6 as examples. Readers can take a closer look. Is the price fluctuation like buying and selling stocks?In fact, these vegetable sellers are really pitiful. They spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy goods, which makes them feel scared every day. They are always thinking, what should they do if the purchase price is too high and they cannot be sold?The price may rise today, but it will fall tomorrow, and it may rise or fall the day after tomorrow.Why do prices fluctuate so much?This is the result of the game of the three major wholesalers, large, medium and small. These wholesalers have manipulated the prices of vegetables through the following two steps.
Figure 3-5 Trend chart of tomato prices in Shanghai Agricultural Wholesale Market from April 27 to May 25, 2010
Figure 3-6 Price chart of beans in Fuzhou agricultural products from April 26 to May 24, 2010
The first song: price reduction.Large wholesalers use this method to drive away rivals and control the upstream.For example, suppose three wholesalers, large, medium and small, bought goods for two yuan at the beginning, and then the large wholesaler sold them in the market at a price of 1 yuan and 50 cents, causing losses. Wholesalers are all squeezed out so that he can monopolize.After the monopoly, he will go back to control the vegetable source, how to control it?They ran to find these vegetable farmers and told them, comrade farmers, the market price is only one and a half yuan a catty, and I will give you 2 yuan to buy your vegetables, okay?The farmer was very excited when he heard that, how could there be such a good person?Give me a price of 2 yuan, and the farmer naturally accepts it happily.Then the big wholesaler said, but you have to agree to two conditions: the first condition, let me buy all your vegetables; the second condition, one password and one action.Whenever I ask you to pick vegetables, you can pick them. Anyway, green vegetables can be kept in the field for two or three weeks.At this time, what if a new opponent comes in?Then there will be another price cut, and another 1 yuan and 50 cents to drive away the new opponents. Anyway, the big wholesalers are not short of this money for the sake of huge profits.
The second step: control the middle and lower reaches, resulting in shortages.Then these large wholesalers told the farmers that they are not allowed to pull vegetables now, the purpose is to cause a shortage in the market, raise the price of vegetables, and cash out.What they do is different from fried mung beans and garlic.Because garlic and mung beans can be stored, hype will be a protracted war.But green vegetables are different. They cannot be stored, so they can only be a short-term job, and the price must rise and fall within a few days.Readers should cry for China's market economy.Why?Because our China is a country that has never experienced a market economy, but always pushes everything to the market for resolution.For example, in our country’s medical reform, education reform, and housing reform in the past, the government couldn’t handle it by itself, so it didn’t carry it out, and pushed all these problems to the market to solve them. What was the result in the end? "After the medical reform, they can't afford to see a doctor, after the education reform, they can't afford to go to school, and after the housing reform, they can't afford to live in a house."Now that the price of vegetables is pushed to the market, the result can only be manipulated.
On May 26, 2010, Premier Wen Jiabao of the State Council presided over an executive meeting of the State Council, pointing out that illegal activities such as hoarding, driving up, and clever manipulation of agricultural product prices should be severely cracked down on.Approved by the State Council, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce jointly issued a notice requiring local people's governments at all levels to effectively strengthen the supervision of the agricultural product market, severely crack down on hype such as hoarding and driving up the price of agricultural products, resolutely maintain normal market order, and promote price consolidation. The level is basically stable.With the joint action of the national government departments, the market prices of agricultural products such as garlic and mung beans, which had skyrocketed in the early stage, fell back immediately.What is even more noteworthy is that the executive meeting of the State Council decided on a two-pronged strategy, that is, while requiring relevant state departments to organize market supervision and crack down on hype of agricultural products, at the same time, the National Development and Reform Commission sent more than a dozen research teams to conduct research in various places. .According to reports, the purpose of the NDRC delegation this time is to study the long-term mechanism for stabilizing the production and prices of agricultural products such as vegetables, starting with the construction of special vegetable production bases, large-scale agricultural product wholesale markets and efficient logistics systems.So, what is the difference between the price increase of agricultural products in the first half of 2010 and the previous market price increase?What aspects need to be improved in the agricultural product production system?
Readers who look at the manipulation of storable and non-storable produce we just talked about will see how they are orchestrated to manipulate this market.In the past, there was still a misunderstanding in our thinking. We always thought that these wholesalers were controlling channels and trying to make a profit for themselves. Whoever does business is not for profit, and there is no such huge profit.Take the above example as an example, the vegetables grown by farmers are sold to wholesalers for 1 yuan per catty, and because the wholesalers control the channels, they can be sold to our consumers at a price of 10 yuan per catty. There is no way not to buy, because no one else sells to us, the channels are monopolized by these big wholesalers, and there is no competition.In this case, the wholesaler made 9 yuan at once.Let's see how our government handles this problem?The government simply raised the purchase price.Just like in the past, wholesalers purchased at 1 yuan, and then sold it to us for 10 yuan, earning 9 yuan from it.Now the government requires the wholesaler to increase the purchase price to 2 yuan. Through this method, the profit of the wholesaler is reduced to 8 yuan.What is the government doing?It is called "downstream price increases are not allowed, and farmers' upstream purchase prices are increased".Our government is still thinking about problems in this ancient way of thinking. You know, times are different now.You suddenly find that these wholesalers are not the same people who made 9 yuan in the past.They manipulate storable and non-storable produce through the four-step and two-step methods I described earlier.The peasants still get 1 yuan, and the peasants are exploited.And what about our consumers?To make matters worse, vegetables that used to cost 10 yuan can now be sold to us for 90 yuan, 100 yuan, or even 1,000 yuan. We consumers are also exploited.The entire market is manipulated by these speculators, who not only exploit farmers, but also exploit all consumers.Moreover, these speculators are hateful. I criticized the manipulation of garlic in the second half of 2009. These speculators even found a group of people to attack me personally on the website. Lang Xianping started a war, readers can think about how arrogant these people are.In order to fight back against them, I not only continue to investigate the manipulation of garlic again, but also expand the battlefield to other storable and non-storable agricultural products. My purpose is very simple, to protect the rights and interests of farmers and consumers. Readers may ask me, how do you think our government should deal with this problem?First of all, I have to say that the past model of 1 yuan for farmers, 9 yuan for wholesalers, and 10 yuan for retail prices no longer exists.The current wholesalers are no longer satisfied with earning such a small amount of money. They will raise the price to 90 yuan, 100 yuan, or even 1,000 yuan.So I call on the government to start arresting these speculators of agricultural products, because they manipulate prices and form a monopoly of agricultural products.What is a monopoly?The act of uniting to control prices is a monopoly. Didn't we recently introduce an anti-monopoly law?I think the antitrust laws have to apply to these people. In order to give the government more ideas, I would like to talk about what kind of punishment will be received in the United States if they attempt to monopolize the market and control prices? From 2001 to 2006, LG, Sharp, Huaying, and Samsung were suspected of repeatedly manipulating the prices of computer screens and LCD TV panels.The U.S. Department of Justice intervened in the investigation. As I mentioned before, the U.S. Department of Justice was very efficient and strict in its investigations. In the end, several manufacturers had to plead guilty.What is the punishment for them?LG, Sharp, and Huaying have fined a total of 585 million US dollars, which is more than that. Four of the executives were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 4 months to 16 months.You see, in fact, we can not only pay high fines, but also pursue criminal responsibility and sentence.Samsung is more aware of current affairs and is very cooperative with the investigation of the Ministry of Justice, so it was exempted from punishment. On May 21, 2010, the European Commission issued a fine of 331 million euros to 10 memory manufacturers, including Samsung, Hynix, Infineon, Huaying, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Elpida, Nanya, Micron, etc. .what is the reason?They manipulate the price of memory!Because Micron acted as a tainted witness, it was exempted from punishment.Therefore, I appeal to the government to immediately send police to the areas circled in Figure 3-1 and Figure 3-2 to arrest all those who leased cold storage on a large scale. They must be speculators and can’t be wrong. .Then use the antitrust laws to sue them because these speculators are the enemy of our farmers and consumers. Founded in 1893, Sunkist Growers is the world's oldest and largest citrus marketing organization.Unlike many food companies, Sunkist is jointly owned by more than 6,000 citrus growers in California and Arizona.Most of them are small individual fruit farmers, about 2000 of them grow lemons.Every year, Sunkist growers ship their oranges, lemons, grapefruits and many other seasonal produce all over the world.
The agricultural industry chain appeared in the United States in the 1950s.This new industrial structure, which is different from traditional agricultural production, has enabled American agriculture to form the same production mode as other industrial sectors in the United States, and its operating mechanism has thus entered the modern management system.After the United States, the agricultural industry chain has been developed and improved worldwide.In the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries, the development of the agricultural industry chain has reached a very high level.my country's agricultural industrialization management started in the early 1990s. After nearly 20 years of development, agricultural industrialization is shifting from partial exploration to comprehensive promotion.Due to their optimism about the development prospects of my country's agricultural industrialization, more and more investors have begun to pay attention to the agricultural field, and a new "going to the mountains and going to the countryside" movement is quietly unfolding in the investment field.However, with the adjustment of the entire social and economic structure, including the accelerated pace of globalization, China's agricultural industrialization is also facing various new challenges. So, what is the real meaning of the agricultural industrial chain?How should we build our own agricultural industry chain? In the end, I would like to use the American Sunkist model as our solution.The Sunkist model is an agricultural industrial chain, including seeds, seedlings, pesticides, fertilizers, scientific and technological guidance, shareholders, acquisition and packaging, storage and transportation, wholesale and retail.This is different from the industrial chain. I appeal to learn from the American Sunkist model and integrate the entire agricultural industry chain.That is to say, through the government or through the integration of intermediate wholesalers and farmers.How to integrate? The first step is to give farmers equity.Farmers' equity is not based on how much they actually contribute, but on the basis of how much agricultural products each farmer produces.If farmer A has 5 oranges, farmer B has 3 oranges, and farmer C has 2 oranges, then the equity of these three farmers is 50%, 30% and 20%.
Figure 3-7 Sunkist agricultural industry chain model
The second step is to hire professional managers to run through the entire industrial chain.The profit distribution of the entire industrial chain must be open and transparent.Every link in the industrial chain must earn a reasonable profit.That is to say, the farmer should not only earn 1 yuan, he should earn 3 yuan, and the final profit should be distributed according to the equity ratio of 50%, 30%, and 20%.Compress the intermediate link to 2 yuan, and the final retail price is not 10 yuan, but 5 yuan.
We combine this new industrial chain integration with the anti-monopoly law, and the result is that farmers get benefits, and consumers also get benefits.Don't think this matter is small. If you can do this step, you will achieve the first step of hiding wealth among the people that I have repeatedly called for.Vegetables that used to cost us 10 yuan can now be bought for 5 yuan, and consumers can save 5 yuan.If farmers could only earn 1 yuan in the past, now they can earn 3 yuan, and the farmers will be rich. This is what I call hiding wealth from the people.
Under the circumstances that multinational corporations have already controlled the pricing power of vegetable oil in China, if they further gain control over grain circulation, China will lose the power of grain pricing, which will cause passive macro-control of grain and food security in China.Therefore, in the case of soaring international grain prices, China blocked the transmission channel from the international market to the domestic market, and temporarily maintained the basic stability of domestic grain prices.Although China's grain production is less dependent on foreign countries, China's chemical fertilizer production is highly dependent on sulfur and potash fertilizers. Foreign countries may increase the cost of fertilizers to raise China's grain prices.
A multinational company, through several years of development, has a monopoly position in the Chinese small-package edible oil market, accounting for 60% to 70% of the Chinese market share.It is an obvious layout strategic roadmap to master the terminal channels of vegetable oil sales in China, and then establish or acquire flour mills and rice processing plants, and use vegetable oil sales channels to enter the grain consumption market.
An authority in the industry pointed out that the world's four major grain merchants established grain processing and distribution enterprises on the one hand, and began to search for grain sources on the other hand.Sinograin is the largest grain reserve enterprise in China and the first choice for the cooperation of the four major grain merchants.Three years later, the four major grain chambers of commerce became the leaders in grain processing and sales in China.Some local governments generally have the idea that foreign capital is better than domestic capital in attracting investment, and provide them with various convenient conditions to establish or acquire grain processing enterprises.Even if multinational grain merchants do not cooperate with Sinograin, they can still find grain sources.
The authoritative person also revealed our shortcomings: At present, China Grain Storage, as the largest grain source control enterprise in China, has relatively strong strength, but has no grain processing business.COFCO has a processing business, but it cannot control the grain source and its sales network is not enough.Although Hualiang Group is a relatively large enterprise in China, its strength cannot be compared with multinational companies.At present, a major problem in the regulation of China's grain market is that there are only reserves, and there is no control over processed products and sales, which will bring risks to regulation.
The key to food security lies in the field of processing and distribution. It is unlikely that multinational corporations will impact production with low-priced food, but if they control the processing and distribution of food, they will have the power to price finished food products, which will affect the Chinese food market. regulation.Multinational grain merchants not only have strong financial advantages, but also have established marketing networks and established a series of brands through edible oil.They take advantage of these advantages to compete with Chinese grain processing enterprises, and they will be very lethal.
This article is excerpted from "Food Wars: Markets, Power, and the Invisible War in the World Food System" by Raj Patel
Zhang Wuben's health regimen is low cost, easy to learn, and this set of diet therapy ideas without taking medicine is also very interesting. The most famous one is "Mung Bean Theory". He said that mung bean can not only treat myopia, diabetes, high blood pressure, but also tumor.Therefore, mung beans have become a must-buy item for many consumers, ranging from three to five catties to dozens of catties, and the price is constantly being pushed up.Some stall owners even said that the rise in the price of mung beans was all thanks to Zhang Wuben.According to media reports, a certain brand of mung bean and licorice soup sold in the name of Zhang Wuben has sold for 138 yuan, and a bottle of black beans soaked in vinegar is priced at 38 yuan. It has just been launched for half a month, and 100 bottles can be sold every day. It has become the company's best-selling product, all because everyone wants to keep in good health.Have you ever wondered what happened to this society?This simple deception can fool people around.Readers, please think about it, each of us has a different constitution, how can there be one medicine that can cure all diseases?By the way, mung beans are not considered medicine, but food.If it is food, it is even more impossible.Could it be that if we all ate mung beans in the past, wouldn’t we be called the “sick man of East Asia”?Could it be that if we all eat mung beans, we won't have any diseases anymore?And readers, please think about it again, even the simple medical theory that you Zhang Wuben can see, can't the emperor's imperial physicians, Hua Tuo and other famous doctors not see it?How can you invent a product that can cure all diseases once you eat it?This is obviously nonsense.And I can tell everyone that as long as it is said that it can cure all diseases, it must be a lie.But this kind of thing can deceive ordinary people in China.Why?It is mainly caused by the ignorance of our Chinese people in medicine.According to the survey conducted by the Ministry of Health in 2009, the overall level of health literacy among Chinese residents is only 6.48%. This low level of medical literacy is the only reason why Zhang Wuben's theory can be rampant.But I don’t want to talk about him anymore. I want to use him as an introduction to talk about an interesting topic. Let’s talk about the mung beans he recommended and the garlic we are very concerned about. I want to talk to you about how two different types of produce are being manipulated.One is storable and one is non-storable.The ones that can be stored include garlic, mung beans, black beans, peppers, etc., and the ones that cannot be stored are green vegetables. Let’s talk about why these storable products are manipulated first.It generally has three premises. First premise: it's a very humble product.If it is rice, it will not work. If the price of rice increases by 5% or 10%, the regulatory authorities will immediately come forward to suppress it.But the regulatory authorities will not pay attention to things like garlic that explode when cooking, nor will they pay attention to mung beans for mung bean soup. The second premise: You can only open a position in the year when the output drops sharply. For example, garlic and mung beans are both opened in 2009.Why?Taking 2008 as an example, the export of our Chinese garlic to Japan was restricted, so these garlic were sold back to China, which impacted the domestic market as a result. The price of garlic in 2008 was 1 yuan per kilogram, which led to an overall decline in the planting area of garlic in 2009.For example, Shandong Jinxiang has dropped by one-third. In 2009, the planting area in Shandong decreased by 30%, and that in Henan decreased by 50%. Moreover, due to the abnormal climate, Shandong, the main garlic producing area, experienced a cold spring, and there was even snow in the south of Shandong in April, so the garlic output dropped sharply.The same is true for Green Mutual. The price in 2007 was particularly good, so in 2008 our farmers planted a large number of mung beans, and the price dropped when there were more mung beans, so in 2009 they stopped planting.It just happened that the weather was abnormal again. There was a severe drought in the Northeast, and the number of mung beans that could be planted decreased by 29%. Therefore, many farmers abandoned beans and turned to other crops.Therefore, whether it is garlic or mung beans, it happened that the production volume dropped sharply at the beginning of 2009, and the price was extremely cheap, so speculators began to build positions at this time. In the first half of 2010, the prices of agricultural and sideline products such as garlic, vegetables, and mung beans rose sharply, which aroused various worries and speculations about prices among the public.Among these agricultural products, garlic bears the brunt.In just half a year, the price of garlic has risen by more than 10 times.In addition, the retail price of mung beans has also risen from about 7 yuan per kilogram in 2009 to about 20 yuan per kilogram, and some mung beans even sold for 24 yuan per kilogram, an increase of up to 300%.The rise in the price of agricultural products has given birth to new online vocabulary, "garlic you ruthless", "beans you play", "corn crazy", "spicy and overpowering", are used by netizens to describe the market prices of garlic, miscellaneous grains, corn and pepper respectively.According to the monitoring of the Agricultural Products Wholesale Market Information Network of the Ministry of Agriculture, from December 2009 to April 2010, the national vegetable basket wholesale price index has been running at a high level above 160 points, an increase of about 12 points year-on-year; the average price of 28 kinds of vegetables under key monitoring is per kilogram 3.51 yuan, 0.84 yuan higher than the same period last year, an increase of 31.5%. The sharp rise in prices of agricultural products in the first half of 2010 was related to man-made manipulations, so how did such manipulations take place?
The third premise: the place of origin must be particularly concentrated for easy acquisition.The area circled in Figure 3-1 is the main producing area of garlic. For example, Jinxiang, Shandong has 600,000 mu, accounting for 60% of the national output; Zhongmu, Henan has 400,000 mu, accounting for 30% of the national garlic export volume. Garlic The origin is very concentrated.Relatively speaking, mung bean production areas are also very concentrated, basically in the west of Heilongjiang Province, the northwest of Jilin Province, and the east of Inner Mongolia. See the circles in Figure 3-2. Building a warehouse can also be divided into several steps.
Figure 3-1 Origin of garlic
Figure 3-2 Origin of mung beans
Figure 3-3 Garlic price chart
Figure 3-4 Price chart of mung bean
But what about the rising prices of non-storable vegetables? In December 2008, Chinese cabbage in Ruzhou, Henan Province cost 6 cents a kilogram, or even 10 yuan per cart. If it couldn’t be sold, it would rot in the market. Readers often see this, right?But in 2010 the situation was very different.Take the wholesale price of tomatoes in Shanghai as an example (Figure 3-5). On May 6, 2010, it was 3 yuan per catty. On May 7, it rose to 4 yuan, and on May 13 it fell to 2.5 yuan. How did the price change so quickly?Figure 3-6 shows the price of beans in Fuzhou (Yafeng) Vegetable Wholesale Market. It was 5 yuan on May 12, 7 yuan on May 14, 5 yuan on May 17, and fell to 5 yuan on May 24. To 3.4 yuan, this price fluctuation is almost the same as the stock price, why?Because basically it's all about manipulation. According to our recent research, some vegetable growers and vendors say that selling vegetables is like trading in stocks recently.Take the tomatoes in the Shanghai Agricultural Products Wholesale Market in Figure 3-5 and the beans in the Yafeng Vegetable Market in Fuzhou in Figure 3-6 as examples. Readers can take a closer look. Is the price fluctuation like buying and selling stocks?In fact, these vegetable sellers are really pitiful. They spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy goods, which makes them feel scared every day. They are always thinking, what should they do if the purchase price is too high and they cannot be sold?The price may rise today, but it will fall tomorrow, and it may rise or fall the day after tomorrow.Why do prices fluctuate so much?This is the result of the game of the three major wholesalers, large, medium and small. These wholesalers have manipulated the prices of vegetables through the following two steps.
Figure 3-5 Trend chart of tomato prices in Shanghai Agricultural Wholesale Market from April 27 to May 25, 2010
Figure 3-6 Price chart of beans in Fuzhou agricultural products from April 26 to May 24, 2010
Readers who look at the manipulation of storable and non-storable produce we just talked about will see how they are orchestrated to manipulate this market.In the past, there was still a misunderstanding in our thinking. We always thought that these wholesalers were controlling channels and trying to make a profit for themselves. Whoever does business is not for profit, and there is no such huge profit.Take the above example as an example, the vegetables grown by farmers are sold to wholesalers for 1 yuan per catty, and because the wholesalers control the channels, they can be sold to our consumers at a price of 10 yuan per catty. There is no way not to buy, because no one else sells to us, the channels are monopolized by these big wholesalers, and there is no competition.In this case, the wholesaler made 9 yuan at once.Let's see how our government handles this problem?The government simply raised the purchase price.Just like in the past, wholesalers purchased at 1 yuan, and then sold it to us for 10 yuan, earning 9 yuan from it.Now the government requires the wholesaler to increase the purchase price to 2 yuan. Through this method, the profit of the wholesaler is reduced to 8 yuan.What is the government doing?It is called "downstream price increases are not allowed, and farmers' upstream purchase prices are increased".Our government is still thinking about problems in this ancient way of thinking. You know, times are different now.You suddenly find that these wholesalers are not the same people who made 9 yuan in the past.They manipulate storable and non-storable produce through the four-step and two-step methods I described earlier.The peasants still get 1 yuan, and the peasants are exploited.And what about our consumers?To make matters worse, vegetables that used to cost 10 yuan can now be sold to us for 90 yuan, 100 yuan, or even 1,000 yuan. We consumers are also exploited.The entire market is manipulated by these speculators, who not only exploit farmers, but also exploit all consumers.Moreover, these speculators are hateful. I criticized the manipulation of garlic in the second half of 2009. These speculators even found a group of people to attack me personally on the website. Lang Xianping started a war, readers can think about how arrogant these people are.In order to fight back against them, I not only continue to investigate the manipulation of garlic again, but also expand the battlefield to other storable and non-storable agricultural products. My purpose is very simple, to protect the rights and interests of farmers and consumers. Readers may ask me, how do you think our government should deal with this problem?First of all, I have to say that the past model of 1 yuan for farmers, 9 yuan for wholesalers, and 10 yuan for retail prices no longer exists.The current wholesalers are no longer satisfied with earning such a small amount of money. They will raise the price to 90 yuan, 100 yuan, or even 1,000 yuan.So I call on the government to start arresting these speculators of agricultural products, because they manipulate prices and form a monopoly of agricultural products.What is a monopoly?The act of uniting to control prices is a monopoly. Didn't we recently introduce an anti-monopoly law?I think the antitrust laws have to apply to these people. In order to give the government more ideas, I would like to talk about what kind of punishment will be received in the United States if they attempt to monopolize the market and control prices? From 2001 to 2006, LG, Sharp, Huaying, and Samsung were suspected of repeatedly manipulating the prices of computer screens and LCD TV panels.The U.S. Department of Justice intervened in the investigation. As I mentioned before, the U.S. Department of Justice was very efficient and strict in its investigations. In the end, several manufacturers had to plead guilty.What is the punishment for them?LG, Sharp, and Huaying have fined a total of 585 million US dollars, which is more than that. Four of the executives were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 4 months to 16 months.You see, in fact, we can not only pay high fines, but also pursue criminal responsibility and sentence.Samsung is more aware of current affairs and is very cooperative with the investigation of the Ministry of Justice, so it was exempted from punishment. On May 21, 2010, the European Commission issued a fine of 331 million euros to 10 memory manufacturers, including Samsung, Hynix, Infineon, Huaying, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Elpida, Nanya, Micron, etc. .what is the reason?They manipulate the price of memory!Because Micron acted as a tainted witness, it was exempted from punishment.Therefore, I appeal to the government to immediately send police to the areas circled in Figure 3-1 and Figure 3-2 to arrest all those who leased cold storage on a large scale. They must be speculators and can’t be wrong. .Then use the antitrust laws to sue them because these speculators are the enemy of our farmers and consumers. Founded in 1893, Sunkist Growers is the world's oldest and largest citrus marketing organization.Unlike many food companies, Sunkist is jointly owned by more than 6,000 citrus growers in California and Arizona.Most of them are small individual fruit farmers, about 2000 of them grow lemons.Every year, Sunkist growers ship their oranges, lemons, grapefruits and many other seasonal produce all over the world.
The agricultural industry chain appeared in the United States in the 1950s.This new industrial structure, which is different from traditional agricultural production, has enabled American agriculture to form the same production mode as other industrial sectors in the United States, and its operating mechanism has thus entered the modern management system.After the United States, the agricultural industry chain has been developed and improved worldwide.In the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries, the development of the agricultural industry chain has reached a very high level.my country's agricultural industrialization management started in the early 1990s. After nearly 20 years of development, agricultural industrialization is shifting from partial exploration to comprehensive promotion.Due to their optimism about the development prospects of my country's agricultural industrialization, more and more investors have begun to pay attention to the agricultural field, and a new "going to the mountains and going to the countryside" movement is quietly unfolding in the investment field.However, with the adjustment of the entire social and economic structure, including the accelerated pace of globalization, China's agricultural industrialization is also facing various new challenges. So, what is the real meaning of the agricultural industrial chain?How should we build our own agricultural industry chain? In the end, I would like to use the American Sunkist model as our solution.The Sunkist model is an agricultural industrial chain, including seeds, seedlings, pesticides, fertilizers, scientific and technological guidance, shareholders, acquisition and packaging, storage and transportation, wholesale and retail.This is different from the industrial chain. I appeal to learn from the American Sunkist model and integrate the entire agricultural industry chain.That is to say, through the government or through the integration of intermediate wholesalers and farmers.How to integrate? The first step is to give farmers equity.Farmers' equity is not based on how much they actually contribute, but on the basis of how much agricultural products each farmer produces.If farmer A has 5 oranges, farmer B has 3 oranges, and farmer C has 2 oranges, then the equity of these three farmers is 50%, 30% and 20%.
Figure 3-7 Sunkist agricultural industry chain model