Fruit prices in China have soared to record highs. For the humble apple, its price is up 50 percent from last year! Zhou Xiaoye finds out why and asks what farmers should do to control this.

Fruit farmers like Hou, from Shaanxi Province, are not happy. It's approaching the harvesting season, but his contract with apple agents has him selling his stock below the current asking price. And there's nothing he can do about it.

Hou Qinglin, Fruit Farmer of Luochuan County, Shaanxi Province said "The current price is 6 or even more than 7 yuan per kilogram, but my previous contract set the price at 4.4 yuan, which means I'll lose nearly 2 yuan per kilogram."

Che Shuliang, Apple agent said "This year's price is unexpectedly high, it's unprecedented. Nobody every thought about such a price."

Hou will lose more than 30 thousand yuan. So he has decided to breach the contract and find a new agent, or to keep the apples in a refrigerator till someone with a better offer comes along.

Aside from natural disasters, higher production prices and labor costs contribute to the rising prices of the common apple. Overseas production of the fruit has dwindled - particularly in US, Chile and Poland, the world's largest producing nations. They are now, ironically, importing the fruit from China - and China is glad to oblige - as the nation fetches record prices for the humble fruit.

Lu Fanglin, Secretary-General of China Fruit Marketing Association said "Export of China's concentrated apple juice is recovering. Every ton of juice needs 7 tons of fresh apple. So processing companies' purchase price in September jumped to 1,000 yuan for one ton."

Experts predicts that the prices will continue to climb due to excessive rain and insect attacks this year. Despite this, demand for the fruit is relatively stable, so farmers are not hoarding their stock.

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