♪ i can't wait ♪
Over the past five years, the gold and silver flower industry has gone through a typical cycle. Between 2021 and 2025, its market performance went out of a “sliding back and down” trajectory, while the development of the cultivation sector went through three phases of “extension, stagnation and adjustment”. At the beginning of 2026, prices remained low and industrial adjustments continued。
I. History is coming back to lower ground
The price changes over the last five years (in shandong, hebei main production area, for example, in dollar/kg) clearly reflect the shift in the supply-demand relationship:
2021: falling back in position
At the beginning of the year, prices ranged from 180 to 210 yuan, taking on the high levels caused by the 2020 epidemic. However, owing to high prices in 2020, which stimulated large-scale expansion, new capacity was released during the new production season, supply increased and prices began to decline, falling to around $140 at the end of the year。
2022: steady improvement
For most of the year, prices have been smooth between 130 and 150 yuan. At the end of the year, the response to the epidemic policy was accompanied by a surge in preventive demand in the short term, and the price was raised to over $200 at the end of the year。
2023: return to basic noodles
Prices remained high at $200-240 at the beginning of the year. As the demand for temporary vaccinations recedes, the capacity for earlier expansions is concentrated in the current year and demand and supply are rapidly reversed. Prices fell all the way from production to about $145 at the end of the year。
2024: continued weakness
The market is entering the digestive inventory phase. Prices continued to convulsify between 125 and 145 yuan, with buyers taking the lead in the market. By the end of the year, the price of primary goods was approximately $125。
2025: falling costs, depth adjustment
The pressure on excess capacity was fully evident, and prices were falling at an accelerated pace. The first-class price fell to $90-115 and the second-class price was around $75. This price is very close to the industry average planting cost (approximately 67 yuan/kg), and most growers are beginning to face losses。
Early 2026 (to march): low profile
Current prices fluctuated between $90-98/kg. Market transactions are low, high stocks coexist with weak demand, and prices are at a bottom stage, lacking the incentive to rebound。
Ii. Ending the expansion of cultivation and entering the primer phase
Corresponding to price changes, there has also been a shift in the logic of growth in the cultivation sector。
1. Area and production: top of expansion, structural consolidation
The area under national cultivation has grown significantly over five years and has entered the platform period. About 1. 2 million acres in 2021 peaked at 172 to 1. 9 million acres in 2024 and stabilized at 1. 8 to 1. 9 million acres in 2025. While the total area of the traditional core production areas (hebei deer, shandong hills, henan cemetery) is still over 70 per cent, new production areas such as guizhou, sichuan, shaanxi and hunan are growing rapidly, with a total area of over 400,000 acres, becoming new sources of supply. The stagnation in area growth marks the end of the phase of scale-based expansion。
2. A shift in development focus towards efficiency and quality
In the face of low price pressures, efficiency gains and upgrading within industries have begun to be sought。
Production methods tend to converge: “corporate + cooperative + farmer” order and organize patterns have increased in proportion, and the risk resistance of large-scale growers is relatively stronger。
Quality awareness is increasing: normative, standardized cultivation is receiving increasing attention. By 2024, about 680,000 acres of cultivated land were managed according to norms such as the gap, increasing to 39. 5 per cent of the total area, and the “good quality price” became the industry consensus。
Technological application response costs: in response to the cost of manual harvesting, which accounts for more than 60 per cent of the total cost, the industry has sought breakthroughs in two ways: the promotion of high-yield, easy-to-receivable species such as the “northflower one”, with 86 per cent of non-sexual seedling applications, and the attempt to mechanize extraction and the extension of production sites for processing to reduce artificial dependency and post-partum depletion。
3. Current status of development of gold and silver
The earlier expansion was driven mainly by policy support (medical plan xiv5, industrial power towns project), short-term high profits from the epidemic, and demand for pharmaceutical companies to build a base of raw materials. The core problem facing the industry today is that overcapacity leads to long-term under-priced prices, which not only discourages cultivation, but may also lead to problems such as extensive field management and delays in replanting, which in turn affects the long-term quality of supplies of medicines。
Iii. In summary
High prices in 2019-2023 were mainly affected by fluctuations in demand caused by special events and directly stimulated the rapid expansion of cultivated areas. The fall in prices in 2024-2025 is the inevitable consequence of the pre-expanded centralized release of production capacity and the entry of industries into the stock digestion period。
For 2026 and beyond, the market is expected to continue to focus on digesting social stocks and price shocks near the cost line will be normal. This process will accelerate the integration of industries and will result in the phasing out of some high-cost and inefficient capacity。
