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Prices of Garlic Hit the Roof in China
Garlic has outperformed stocks, property and even gold after low demand due to the financial crisis late last year led Chinese farmers -- responsible for about three-quarters of world supply -- to plant less, slashing supply.
The soaring prices have created a new breed of millionaire, as businessmen and savvy speculators cash in big on the newfound demand for the pungent bulbs.
"Last year's dismal prices caused garlic production to plunge," explained Chen Shuwei, an analyst at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultants.
"Now speculators have rushed in to buy up garlic by the truckload because the garlic market is relatively small and easy to manipulate."
Last month, the wholesale price of garlic in eastern Shandong province -- the country's garlic-producing heartland -- rose to nine yuan per kilo (60 US cents a pound), from 0.2 yuan a year earlier, state Xinhua news agency reported this week.
"Prices started to surge around September," said Zhao Fangling, the general manager of a garlic processing company in Shandong's Jinxiang county.
"Garlic was so cheap in the previous two years that some of it was just dumped as trash. Farmers lost money and stopped planting it so supplies dropped by 30-40 percent," he said.
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