Compiled by NAN HIDAYAT NAN AZMIE, C. ARUNO and R. ARAVINTHAN
UNPREDICTABLE weather conditions and the Middle East conflict are causing fluctuations in local vegetable prices, China Press reported.
According to the president of the Federation of Vegetable Farmers Associations, Lim Ser Kwee, the price of tomatoes has risen fivefold, from RM1 to RM5 per kilogramme, over the last month.
Prices of other vegetables, such as cucumbers and French beans, have also shot up.
Lim explained that farmers were scaling back their operations, fearing that unexpected heavy rain could destroy their seedlings.
The Middle East conflict has also exacerbated the situation, as rising diesel prices have affected farmers’ profits.
“If a farmer plants cucumbers on six acres of land, they use about 40 litres of diesel. That alone is a substantial cost.
“What’s more, they have no idea what the market price of their cucumbers will be when they are harvested a month later,” he said, explaining why farmers were hesitant to plant more vegetables.
Lim added that farmers were also burdened by increasing fertiliser and pesticide prices as a result of tensions in the Middle East, making their operations even less profitable.
He urged the government to provide more subsidies to farmers to help reduce production costs, allowing them to compete with cheaper imported vegetables.
> A 70-year-old woman in Shanghai, China, spent 3.36 million yuan (RM1.97mil) – her son’s entire life savings – in less than six months by showering a male livestream host with virtual gifts, Oriental Daily reported.
The woman, surnamed Jiang, had been frugal all her life and never bought luxury goods. After retirement, she received a monthly pension of 5,600 yuan (RM3,280).
Local media reported that her son, known as Zhou, had entrusted all his money to her care.
Jiang later met a livestream host known as Xiao Jie, a graduate of the Department of Dance at Minzu University of China, and became enamoured with his livestream performances.
She started by sending virtual gifts worth 3,000 yuan (RM1,757) four or five times a night and soon became addicted to the recognition she received from both fans and Xiao Jie.
She even spent around 180,000 yuan (RM105,416) on gifts in a single session last December.
This was when Zhou suspected that something was amiss and reported the matter to the police, but the authorities classified it as a civil dispute rather than fraud.
The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.
