"It's been like this for the past two years. Now we just insist on seeing if the price can go up." Lao Wu said.
Organic, green, pollution-free and other eco-agricultural products are "not popular", which is a common phenomenon in recent years. The higher the quality and high-grade agricultural products, the more often they have to worry about sales. Zhang Yanxiang, an agronomist in Shouguang City, Shandong Province, who has been committed to promoting organic fruits and vegetables for the past two years, has a deep feeling about this: "We don't need any chemical fertilizers to produce organic agricultural products, so the roots of crops are not so prosperous, the growth period is relatively short, and the output is much smaller. In the same place, if conventional cultivation can produce 5, kilograms of cucumbers, then we can't even produce 1, kilograms."
with such a low output, producers naturally need a price return. But in fact, organic agricultural products are often difficult to sell at high prices in the market. Two years ago, Zhang Yanxiang planted a batch of organic watermelons, but the final output of 3, kilograms of watermelons was too expensive for supermarkets and ugly for vendors, so he didn't find a buyer and rotted in the ground.
"Ordinary consumers can't tell from the appearance whether it is an organic agricultural product or not. Some fruits and vegetables eaten raw can be tasted and identified by taste, but vegetables such as eggplant and pepper can't be distinguished. Therefore, in the market, consumers stop for a long time in front of organic agricultural products, because there is no way to tell, and in the end they will usually buy low-priced vegetables. " Zhang Yuxiang said.
You should also be diligent in shouting
So, is it a loss-making business to produce ecological agricultural products? Yue Manyi, chairman of Chunlei Selenium-enriched Melon Cooperative, has different views on this: "In recent years, consumers' requirements for the quality of agricultural products have increased, and the taste of melons produced with hormones is not as good as ours. Such melons can sell money when the market is good, but they will not be competitive when the market is bad, but the sales of melons in our cooperative are guaranteed."
Of course, quality alone is not enough. Yue is satisfied that the cooperative's melon must be branded. Only when it is well known can good products sell at a good price. To this end, Yue Satisfaction not only took the melons of cooperatives to sell in various markets, but also organized and held the sweet melon king competition for three consecutive years. At the third melon king competition just held a few days ago, merchants from Xinjiang came here. After inspecting the melons of the cooperative, they expressed their approval and wanted to purchase them.
Yue said with satisfaction, "Sweet melons need to be frequently shouted. We held the Sweet Melon King Challenge Competition, the purpose of which was to create a brand and let our melons go out of the village, Hebei and the world. Our farmers should not only learn science and technology, but also create brands and see the market. At the end of last year, the melon planted by our cooperative applied for the registration of the trademark' Longtang', and the melon of our cooperative in Xu Zhihua won the championship in the Guinness Challenge of Provincial High-quality Agricultural Products. With the brand effect, the income of melon farmers has soared. "
Yue's idea of satisfaction coincides with Zhang Yanxiang's. After experiencing the first failure of organic watermelon, Zhang Yanxiang has also made great efforts to enhance product popularity. "We have engaged in some activities, such as letting consumers taste our products for free and letting tourists visit and pick them at the base." Zhang Yanxiang said, "Now many local people know that the quality of my products here is good. The organic watermelons I grow are basically picked one by one, and I have no worries about selling them."
"At present, the organic agricultural products in our base are mainly sold to supermarkets, which are found in Jinan, Qingdao, Dongying and other places. Now I think about it, I really didn't think carefully enough about planting organic watermelons for the first time. The output of 3, kilograms was too much. At that time, there was no such big market demand, and I couldn't give them away." Zhang Yuxiang said.
But even now, Zhang Yanxiang is still worried about the market, and he dare not let go of his hands and feet. His 1-acre organic agricultural product base has not been put into production.
"I plan to focus on the high-end hotel market in the second half of the year. If this market starts, it will be easy." Zhang Yanxiang said, "Many high-level consumers are interested in organic agricultural products, but there is a lack of connection channels between me and them. These people often go in and out of some high-end hotels, so I want to do it in hotels. Nowadays, sea cucumbers and abalones are not unusual for hotels. If the hotel can provide organic agricultural products, it is a feature. "
However, Zhang Yanxiang is only cautiously optimistic about this potential market: "Many hotels don't pay attention to this yet, and they need guidance from relevant parties."
Zhang Yanxiang's difficulties in the production and marketing docking of organic agricultural products are also universal. In fact, in the final analysis, it is good to build a brand or find a sales channel because, unlike previous conventional agricultural products, ecological agricultural products have to face a higher-end market and often need new methods of production and marketing docking. For farmers as producers, most of them still lack experience and resources in this respect. Although it is not resigned to fate, it does take a long time to overcome difficulties.