In the early hours of dawn around 4 or 5 AM, as the first light breaks on the horizon, a long line of tricycles, each piled high with watermelons, has already formed along the roadside in Peizhuang, Shugang Town, Tongxu County, Kaifeng, Henan. Before long, over a hundred such tricycles gather here, stretching for miles. Driven here by local farmers, this spot has spontaneously become a watermelon market where they wait for buyers to select their produce. This year's market is particularly tough. The purchase price for watermelons here has halved from last year's 0.6 to 0.8 yuan per jin to just 0.3 yuan per jin. The number of out-of-town buyers has also dwindled, with many farmers waiting for three consecutive days without being able to sell even one full tricycle load. In the fields, the melons are on the verge of overripening and splitting open.
News of the watermelon glut in Henan is spreading across social media. Many netizens have shared that in the areas around Kaifeng city, one can "buy out" an entire truckload of nearly 1,000 jin of watermelons for just 50 yuan. This "buyout" trend has formed a chain reaction across multiple regions in Henan, with ordinary citizens, restaurant owners, and company managers purchasing entire truckloads from roadside vendors in spontaneous efforts to help farmers. Recently, the Qingming Shanghe Garden scenic area joined in, purchasing large quantities of locally unsold watermelons and offering them for free to visitors starting July 1st.
Watermelon Glut in Henan and Anhui
Lina is a grower from Tongxu County, Kaifeng City, Henan, with over a decade of experience cultivating watermelons. The size of her melon fields varies, sometimes over ten mu, other times just two or three mu, often intercropped with staple crops like wheat. This year, she planted two mu of watermelons, variety 'Meidu', among her pepper plants, expecting a total yield of around ten thousand jin. In the local area, almost every household grows watermelons. This year, the melons' growth has been poor, with inferior taste and insufficient ripeness. Lina isn't sure of the reason, speculating it might be related to weather or the seed variety.
Lina states that last year's wholesale price for watermelons was 0.6 to 0.8 yuan per jin, but this year it's only 0.3 yuan per jin. Even at this rock-bottom price, a full tricycle load often cannot be sold in an entire day. Beyond her own township, several surrounding townships are also experiencing a watermelon sales slump. Melons with poorer appearance on the market have dropped to 0.1 yuan per jin, some even less. These lower-grade melons are piling up in large quantities, becoming the hardest hit by the price crash.
Watermelon prices in Zhoukou City, Henan, have also fallen sharply. A grower with five mu of watermelons said the retail price at local markets this year is about 0.4 to 0.5 yuan per jin, with the wholesale price at 0.3 yuan per jin. Last year's wholesale price reached 0.6 yuan per jin.
Han Shao is a watermelon grower in Taihe County, Fuyang City, Anhui, who has contracted over 30 mu of land primarily for growing the 'Meidu' variety. In previous years at this time, batches of merchants from Xinyang, Zhumadian, and other parts of Henan would arrive in the village specifically to buy lower-grade melons. They typically drive six-meter-long trucks, each loading over ten thousand jin at a time. Melons are categorized by appearance: premium-grade, often called "loading melons," are those of moderate size, regular shape, and good ripeness; lower-grade melons are often irregularly shaped and uneven in size but still edible, commanding a lower market price overall. In past years, buyers from Henan would offer around 0.3 yuan per jin for these lower-grade melons. This year, however, they have yet to appear.
"Perhaps the local watermelon supply in Henan itself is already oversaturated, so out-of-town buyers have no need to come here," Han Shao speculates. Currently, the price for lower-grade melons in his production area has fallen to 0.1 yuan per jin. This price level typically wouldn't be seen until late July, but it has been reached in early July this year. More critically, while lower-grade melons could still sell in volume at low prices in previous years, sales this year have clearly weakened.
Clashing Harvest Seasons
Han Shao has been growing watermelons for over seven years. His location, Guomiao Town, is famous as the "home of Kirin watermelons," gathering growers of all sizes. Han Shao explains that this year's first harvest melons came to market in late April, priced at 2.1 yuan per jin. While this is lower than last year's 2.8 yuan per jin, the overall price was relatively stable. However, the price for the second harvest melons this year has plummeted to a historic low.
The first harvest refers to the first batch of mature melons picked from a vine, with a growth cycle of about 40 days. The second harvest comes from the vine regrowing after the first is picked, taking about 20 days. The first harvest melons come to market earlier, have better sugar content and taste, and command higher prices. "The loading price for second harvest melons dropping to 0.4 yuan per jin is unimaginable," says Han Shao. In previous years, the price for second harvest melons was 0.6 to 0.8 yuan per jin, reaching a high of 1 yuan per jin last year. This year, the loading price is only 0.4 to 0.5 yuan per jin.
Han Shao's cousin cultivates about twenty-eight mu of watermelons. Last year, the revenue from just the second harvest exceeded 40,000 yuan. This year, his cousin has only received a little over 10,000 yuan. Due to the excessively low market price for the second harvest, and considering the input-output ratio, he has abandoned further management. Most of the melon vines have already withered. Across the twenty-plus mu of greenhouse land, nearly every greenhouse holds large quantities of unsold second-harvest melons. His cousin has decided to leave them be, letting the melons rot.
Han Shao explains that because fertilizing, applying pesticides, and harvesting the second harvest all incur additional costs, abandonment is a helpless choice. How did last year's booming watermelon market come to such an abrupt halt this year? Growers' intuition points to one phrase: "clashing seasons."
Han Shao recalls, "In previous years, after the first harvest melons from Xiayi, Henan, were sold, our melons here would start selling. Now, the first harvest melons from both areas are coming to market almost simultaneously." The earlier market arrival is related to growers actively adjusting their planting schedules. Starting last year, growers in Han Shao's township began exploring methods to advance watermelon cultivation. The reason was their observation that earlier market entry could help avoid the peak supply period, fetching higher prices.
In the past, Han Shao and neighboring farmers typically planted seedlings after the Lantern Festival. But about two years ago, some began experimenting with planting in the twelfth lunar month of the previous year, advancing the market time from June of the following year to April-May. By last year, significantly more growers in the production area adopted this method, leading to widespread "racing to market." The original staggered, relayed market rhythm eventually turned into a concentrated "clash."
Data from the professional agricultural B2B (business-to-business) sales platform Yimutian Inc. shows that in May this year, watermelon supply activity within Anhui Province was significantly higher than the same period in previous years. However, while the early first-harvest melons could sell at higher prices, cultivation costs also increased accordingly, and growers' overall profits did not see a significant boost. Han Shao states that early planting requires protection against frost, snow, and rain, increasing investments in greenhouse film, steel pipes, etc. Overall, the cultivation cost per mu has risen from 3,000 yuan last year to 8,000 yuan this year.
Oversupply Issues
Another reason for the plummeting watermelon prices in Henan, Anhui, and other areas this year is an imbalance between supply and demand. Statistics from Yimutian Inc. show that overall watermelon supply activity in Henan this year increased by 7% year-on-year, indicating a significant production increase compared to last year. However, overall procurement activity did not change markedly, rising only 1%.
Lian Wei, a researcher at the Yimutian Inc. Agricultural Big Data Research Institute, stated that the steady rise in watermelon market supply activity in Henan this year indicates that production areas' willingness to ship goods has not weakened, but demand from the procurement side has not increased correspondingly.
A procurement staff member from a leading fresh produce platform analyzed that favorable weather this year led to bumper crops across major production areas. Combined with overlapping harvest windows in multiple provinces, the market supply instantly became saturated, and terminal consumption capacity struggled to match the production output. A deeper reason lies in the extensive nature of the cultivation model. In many parts of Henan, watermelons are rotated with wheat fields. Farmers do not need to raise seedlings for grafting or implement meticulous management; they can simply sow seeds directly. This low-barrier cultivation method has spawned a large quantity of low-end melons that are hollow, overripe, or lack sufficient sugar content, with limited potential for premium pricing. Furthermore, watermelons are short-shelf-life agricultural products, lasting only three to five days. Once the market is congested, the only option is a drastic price cut to clear inventory.
The source further pointed out that this predicament appears to be short-term volatility but is actually a structural issue accumulated over the long term under the traditional smallholder, dispersed farming model. Farmers lack nationwide supply and demand data support, blindly follow trends to expand planting, have no standardized cultivation system, do not understand quality grading, and possess no market bargaining power. They can only passively accept market fluctuations and price pressure from channels. "Bumper harvests without prosperity" has become the industry norm.
Lian Wei stated that looking at future development trends, on one hand, it is necessary to call on growers to plant rationally and avoid blindly following trends to expand cultivation. On the other hand, it is recommended to optimize variety structure, avoid excessive competition on common varieties, focus on small-sized watermelons to adapt to consumer demand trends, and continuously expand online sales channels. Data from Yimutian Inc. shows that domestic watermelons are still dominated by large varieties like Meidu and Tianwang, but small-sized varieties like Quanmei 2K, Texiaofeng, and Zaochun Hongyu are gradually gaining market favor.
The aforementioned procurement personnel believes that resolving this dilemma requires multi-party collaboration. The industry side needs to rely on cooperatives to integrate scattered farmers, promote standardized cultivation and quality grading, use agricultural big data to accurately guide staggered planting and demand-based planting, and avoid supply-demand imbalances from the source. The enterprise side needs to continuously advance contract farming, using stable orders to secure farmers' income, using standardized quality control to drive cultivation upgrades, and building a virtuous production-sales cycle.
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