Vegetable prices are surging in China after heavy rain swamped crops this month, fuelling concern over food prices at a time when consumers must brace for a hike in energy costs in the run-up to winter. Unusually heavy rains drenched northern swathes of China in September and early this month, flooding the top vegetable-growing province of Shandong. read more “All the vegetables are dead in the ground,” said Zhou Rui, a farmer who cultivates about 7 hectares (17 acres) in the Juancheng county of the province. There was little left to pick after fields of spinach, cabbage and coriander were flooded, she added, while some farmers had not replanted as the weather had already become too cold. The price of spinach has jumped to 16.67 yuan ($2.61) per kg this week from 6.67 yuan in late September, a price index published in the provincial […]