Days of heavy snow have pushed the price of fresh vegetables to double or even more as supply from both inside and outside Shanghai is affected.

At the Cao'an Road Agricultural Products Wholesale Market, one of the city's major food markets, the wholesale price of Chinese cabbage, the most common vegetable for the Chinese, has increased from 0.5 yuan (6.88 US cents) to 1.5 yuan per kilogram.

"Because trucks that transport vegetables from other provinces are blocked on the highways, the number of vegetables arriving at the market is expected to be down by 400 tons today. If the highways continue to be blocked, the affect will be more serious,'' said Wang Xin, manager of the vegetable department of the market.

He said 1,400 tons of vegetables are usually traded in the market every day.

"Vegetables from city suburbs are still arriving though the number is limited,'' Wang added.

The Jiangqiao Food Wholesale Market has exempted all suppliers from paying entrance fees until the Spring Festival to encourage them to transport more vegetables to the city. The market is storing about 1,500 tons of vegetables including potatoes, cabbages and taros, in case of shortage.

The snow has also badly affected some farmers, however.

Some makeshift barns constructed with old bamboo have collapsed under the heavy snow fall.

Of the 1,500-hectare vegetable fields in Nanhui District, about five percent had suffered collapsed barns, according to Yu Yazhong, deputy director of the Nanhui District Agricultural Commission.

"Farmers did not expect such snow, so they didn't prepare adequately,'' Yu said. Officials said they will help farmers to clear snow from the barns and reinforce them.

(Shanghai Daily January 29, 2008)