As Jiangxi locals flood social media selling navel oranges, what are the farmers actually facing?
I. The buyers didn’t come this year
Aunt Zou recalled: ‘In the past, the pickers didn’t even have time for lunch. To save time and finish the harvest, we would bring the food up the mountain, and everyone would squat by the roadside to eat.’
This year, with the oranges not selling, there was little enthusiasm for the work.
Among those gathered at the table, Liao Hai was the only young face. A few years ago, he returned home to manage the orchard full-time. I was introduced to the family through his elder sister, Fengche, who works in Guangzhou; it was through her that I heard about the dismal state of the orange market and decided to visit the production area to see for myself.
The market conditions for Gannan navel oranges in 2023 were unprecedentedly poor.
Every year in mid-to-late November, as the oranges begin to ripen, the roads are filled with lorries from across the country coming to collect the harvest. Traders from other regions visit to inspect the fruit, while local middlemen introduce them to the farmers. Normally, Liao Hai’s family didn’t need to go looking for buyers; they could simply stay at home and the middlemen and traders would come to them. Yet, as 2023 drew to a close, the road in front of their house remained starkly quiet, and no one had come to introduce a buyer to the family.
‘When the market is good, buyers come to inspect and reserve the orchards as early as July or August. Even when prices are low, someone usually comes, but it’s never been like this—not a single buyer has appeared,’ Aunt Zou said. This was the first time in over twenty years of growing navel oranges that she had encountered such a dire situation.
Meanwhile, market prices for navel oranges continued to plummet. Liao Hai shared news he had gathered from other farmers: ‘At first, the orchard reservations were 2.7 yuan per jin, then it dropped to 2.2, then 1.8, and then down to 1.2.’ There were reports online that purchase prices in Gannan had already fallen below one yuan.
Why did the price of navel oranges keep falling?
II. A Quiet, Desolate Market
The fruit traders here generally believe thatinsufficient consumer spending has led to a decline in sales for all types of fruit.
Mr Tong, a wholesaler, told me: “It’s not just the navel oranges; all the fruit is hard to sell. Look at us—because there’s no business, we’ve started playing cards.”
Mr Tong has also started a Douyin account, where he occasionally posts videos to sell his produce. In truth, customers are few, but he feels he must keep filming to keep the business afloat.
Due to poor sales, the price of navel oranges in the market has also dropped significantly compared to 2022. Taking medium-sized fruit (approximately 80mm in diameter) as an example, prices range from 2.4 to 4 yuan depending on the origin and quality. Another wholesaler, Mr Huang, told me that prices in 2022 were far higher than in 2023: “At first, it was three or four yuan, then it even rose to five or seven. There were times when you couldn’t find any stock in the whole market.”
“But that was because we were relying on Zhong Nanshan, who said eating more oranges to supplement vitamin C could help prevent COVID-19; that’s why the prices surged so much. The most absurd was the lemon, which rose to eight or nine yuan per jin—even the lemon didn’t expect it could become the ‘top dog’ for once.”
Mr Huang had ordered his fruit early, with the farm-gate purchase price exceeding 2 yuan. Once you add the 0.5 to 0.6 yuan cost for picking, transport, and sorting, the medium-sized fruit only sells for around 3 yuan in the market, making it impossible to turn a profit.
Rightshui Township in Huichang County is a hub for fruit traders purchasing navel oranges; dozens of factories and warehouses for sorting and processing are concentrated along both sides of National Highway 206. This is the first stop for nearby navel oranges after they are bought up; from here, they are sent across the country via wholesalers, supermarkets, or online platforms.
“Sales will drop by more than 50% this year,” told me Mr Xiao, a buyer. He owns a small factory equipped with a full production line for preservation treatment, sorting, and packaging, and even has equipment for printing the orange packaging boxes. Various specifications of sorted navel oranges are piled in crates throughout the warehouse. Mr Xiao said that he supplies both wholesalers and online platforms such as Pinduoduo. Another trader, Mr Liu, who supplies supermarkets, reported that while supermarket sales are currently normal, the overall contraction of market sales and the drop in prices are established facts.
III. A Disheartening Harvest
According to statistics from the Ganzhou Municipal Bureau of Agriculture, the production of Gannan navel oranges was 1.38 million tonnes in 2020, 1.5 million tonnes in 2021, and 1.59 million tonnes in 2022, maintaining a steady growth trend almost every year. However, locals in Huichang told me that navel orange yields fluctuate greatly and that official statistics are inaccurate; it is better to investigate directly among the growers.
Growers generally feel that 2022 was a disaster year: severe drought in the summer led to poor development of the fruit, and rain just before the harvest caused the interiors to hold too much water, leading to skin cracking and a severe reduction in yield. This occurred not only in Huichang County but across other parts of Ganzhou as well.
In contrast, 2023 was absolutely a bumper year with favourable weather. “But we wouldn’t call it a bumper harvest; let’s just say the yield was normal,” said Secretary Zou, the village party secretary.
Based on the yields of several growers I interviewed, 2023 production nearly doubled compared to 2022. Liao Hai’s orchard produced over 10,000 jin in 2022, but at least 20,000 jin in 2023. Another grower, Old Cheng, harvested only 30,000 jin in 2022; in 2023, he estimated he would get 50,000 jin, but to his surprise, the final yield was 75,000 jin.
Unexpectedly, the bumper harvest led to a situation where “low prices devastated the farmers”: compared to the high of around 2.7 yuan in early November, the purchase price in December had plummeted to as low as 1.2 yuan. At this rate, even with increased production, the drop in price outweighed the gains, meaning farmers’ incomes would actually decrease.
IV. A Cold Snap to Make Matters Worse
In early December, farmers noticed a worrying update: weather forecasts indicated that the entire country would experience a severe temperature drop in mid-December, with temperatures in the Ganzhou navel orange producing areas expected to fall below zero—a rare occurrence. If oranges remained on the trees during a frost, they would easily freeze and spoil. The only way to preserve the crop was to harvest and store the oranges before the cold snap hit. This is why, even without a secured buyer, Liao Hai had to harvest his fruit on the 13th.
Liao Hai said he had been checking the forecast daily for over a week. “The predicted temperatures kept fluctuating; sometimes it said below zero, other times it said it wouldn’t break zero.” Because whether the temperature dipped below freezing had a massive impact on quality, farmers constantly exchanged information. Some even became makeshift meteorological experts—I heard one farmer claim he had just studied the satellite imagery and decided the cold air mass had shifted course and would not hit Ganzhou.
Despite the farmers watching the forecasts like hawks, hunting for news, and hoping the cold snap would never arrive, such hopes were mostly wishful thinking. Most local farmers chose to race against time to get their fruit off the trees. For the majority, who lacked proper storage facilities, the best option was to find a middleman willing to buy before the freeze. Previously, the harvesting season lasted from early November until around the Spring Festival; now, every orange for the season had to be picked by mid-December.
In Youshui Township, dozens of warehouses of all sizes along the roadside were packed to the rafters with navel oranges. Middlemen had generally stockpiled millions of jin of oranges, and storage capacity was nearing its limit. One local warehouse even sold off its remaining 300,000 jin of tung oil meal—used as fertiliser—at cost just to clear space for the oranges.
“Right now, there’s no space, no workers, no lorries, no plastic crates; we’re short of everything,” said Mr Liu, a buyer. He felt the pressure too, wanting to buy but unable to bring the fruit in. Moreover, without a sales channel, he faced the risk of holding onto stagnant stock.
“The price of navel oranges was actually doing okay, but as soon as the forecast mentioned the cold snap, the price just tanked,” Liao Hai told me.
At the end of November, the purchase price was still above 2 yuan per jin. By 12 December, it had fallen to around 1.1–1.2 yuan, with some middlemen even offering 0.9 yuan that day.
Liao Hai’s mother, Aunt Zou, put it bluntly: “When the market was good in 2022, no boss was willing to raise the price; it stayed around 2 yuan. But when the market is bad, they squeeze the farmers on the price.”
According to calculations by various local farmers, even without factoring in labour costs, the cash outlay for fertiliser, pesticides, and other inputs costs between 1 and 1.5 yuan per jin, depending on the age of the trees and the amount of fertiliser used. At current purchase prices, most farmers say it is “impossible to break even.”
V. The Tug-of-War between Farmers, Traders, and the Market
Old Cheng had pre-booked his orchard at the time for 2.63 yuan per jin. The harvest was originally set for 15 November, but due to heavy rain and poor sugar content, the trader pushed the date back to the 23rd. Old Cheng felt then that the trader was stalling; the later the harvest, the lower the market price, which gave the trader more leverage in negotiations.
When harvest day finally arrived, the trader had a new plan: he agreed to buy only the first 36,000 jin at the contract price of 2.63 yuan, with the remainder at 2.05 yuan. Old Cheng took a hard line and refused the price cut. The trader then stated he would only harvest the 50,000 jin specified in the contract, leaving Old Cheng to deal with the rest himself.
Purchase prices changed by the day, and every day of delay worked against the farmer. Secretary Zou told me that on the day of his harvest, he agreed on a price of 2.2 yuan for his 60,000 jin of oranges, but by the afternoon the buyer had changed his mind, offering only 2.17 yuan. He had no choice but to sell quickly.
Another farmer from the same village encountered a different problem: “The pickers were throwing fruit away as they worked—they didn’t want the ones that were too green or too large. In the end, a third was discarded.” These substandard ‘seconds’ could only be sold for 0.6 yuan.
What is certain, however, is that the oranges purchased at high prices early on are now a headache for the traders. At current market rates, selling this pre-booked stock will almost certainly result in a loss.
Due to the severe stockpiling, buyers have little incentive to honour original contracts and continue purchasing. Consequently, they generally employ two strategies: negotiate a price reduction with the farmer, or forfeit the deposit and break the contract.
“A drop of ten or twenty cents doesn’t help us, and if we drop it too much, the farmers won’t accept it, so we just have to lose the deposit.” Mr Liu of Youshui Township had pre-booked navel oranges at 2.8 yuan; he has already broken contracts for about half of them.
Locally, the deposit is around 0.5 yuan per jin. Once the gap between the market price and the pre-booked price becomes too wide, breaking the contract becomes almost inevitable. Farmers wait and wait, only to be abandoned by the traders. Some farmers pre-booked their orchards at 2.7 yuan, had the contract broken, pre-booked again at 1.8 yuan, and were broken again. Locals joke: “It’s like marrying, divorcing, and remarrying; now we can’t even keep a second marriage.”
Looking back, farmers like Old Cheng, who pre-booked and harvested early, were very lucky. Even he remarked, “Last year’s fruit was also booked early, but then the price went up later. Who knew that booking early this year would end up being the most expensive option?” He told us of a farmer in the village with 100,000 jin of fruit who could have sold at 2.6 yuan, but gambled that the price would rise later and refused to sell. He waited until the frost was imminent and was forced to sell for a pittance.
VI. After the Frost: A Fight for Survival
What should the farmers who haven’t sold their fruit do? This was a question I asked repeatedly during my interviews.
Most farmers are still waiting. Those with the means are storing the fruit themselves, hoping to sell once prices rise after the frost. Without fruit merchants to handle storage, farmers must find their own way: most, like Liao Hai’s family, ask relatives and friends for help with harvesting and finding warehouse space, then bag the fruit or spray it with preservatives for long-term storage. Although it is costly and laborious, these issues are manageable if the yield isn’t too high.
“Selling now means taking a loss anyway, so why not take a gamble?” This is the general mindset among the farmers.
But the real question is: will prices actually rise after the frost?
Optimists believe the current situation is merely short-term panic caused by the cold wave, and that the market will eventually return to normal. They also argue that some oranges will be destroyed by the frost on the trees, reducing supply and naturally pushing prices back up. Pessimists, however, believe that the overall production of navel oranges is simply too high. They argue that the frost cannot change the fundamental market dynamics of supply and demand or consumer trends; whether in the hands of farmers or merchants, there are simply too many oranges to absorb. Once competing products like sugar oranges and Wogan mandarins hit the market, navel oranges will have even less of a foothold.
Regardless of which prediction is correct, one fact is certain: looking beyond Ganzhou to the rest of the country, competition in the citrus market is fierce. On Douyin, beneath a short video of a Ganzhou farmer sharing their plight, the top-liked comment—aside from farmers comparing their miseries—read: “Wait a bit longer, and the sugar oranges, emperor mandarins, and Wogan from Guangxi will teach you a lesson.”
These online regional disputes are rooted in reality. In Ganzhou, many farmers believe that oranges from other regions are cheaper, which intensifies local competition. One farmer told me that some merchants brought in a batch of oranges from Hunan and sold them in Ganzhou for just 1.3 yuan per jin—a price that would leave local farmers with a loss. Farmers also believe the quality of these oranges is inferior to those from Ganzhou, which they say is the reason for the low price; Liao Hai’s uncle told me that he once tried navel oranges from elsewhere, and upon peeling them, they lacked the fresh fragrance of the Gannan navel orange.
Notably, during the 2023 harvest season, government authorities at various levels in Ganzhou significantly tightened the management of non-local navel oranges. They not only issued documents requesting that merchants avoid purchasing oranges from other regions but even set up checkpoints on highways. If non-local oranges were discovered, the merchants were fined. To the locals, this was not just about protecting the “Gannan Navel Orange” Geographical Indication (GI) status, but also a government response to the slump in the market.
Secretary Zou also mentioned that the Huichang County government is currently tallying the volume of unsold navel oranges in the area, and there may be sales-promotion measures in the future. However, facing a nationwide surplus of navel oranges—and citrus fruits in general—it remains to be seen whether this “distant water” can quench the “nearby thirst.”
Meanwhile, farmers have already begun to save themselves: selling oranges through short videos and online shops, or via introductions from relatives and friends. This is why reports have surfaced online that “everyone from Jiangxi in their Moments is selling oranges.”
Liao Hai’s sister, Fengche, who works in Guangzhou, not only set up a WeChat group to help the family sell, but also contacted Guangzhou fruit shops to order several hundred jin of navel oranges. Other farmers told me that their nephews’ companies might be able to procure a batch. Through these channels, most can maintain a retail price of over 4 yuan per jin. After deducting shipping costs, the farmers can still earn over 3 yuan. Even if the volume is low, it is far more worthwhile than the abysmal wholesale procurement prices.
When the “Gannan Navel Orange” brand was established, the domestic fruit market was far less hyper-competitive, and navel oranges could still command high prices. Even five or six years ago, there was a wave of migrant workers from Huichang returning home to invest in orange orchards. Their hope was that by middle age, they could use their savings to plant a hillside of navel oranges to provide enough income for retirement. But in recent years, and especially with this year’s slump, these new farmers no longer hold onto that hope.
VII. The Recurring Cycle of Low Prices and Farmer Distress
However, whether switching varieties or improving quality, such moves require government promotion, supporting sales channels, and, most importantly, significant investment. Even enterprises with capital and information face enormous risks when trying to push for industrial change, let alone ordinary farmers.
When farmers—lacking information, capital, and social resources—encounter market volatility, the tragedy of “plummeting prices devastating farmers” will inevitably play out time and again.
Perhaps only the farmers’ words are the most pragmatic: “So many people have colds lately; why not let Zhong Nanshan say a few words? Maybe then the navel oranges would actually sell!”
Indeed, when it comes to reviving a stagnant market, there is no one left to rely on. Aside from a single word from an expert, what hope do the farmers have left?
Editor: Tianle