Big data helps monitor food prices, boost people's satisfaction in Guiyang

Guiyang, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province, has in recent years ramped up efforts to stabilize local food prices and guarantee the food supply through a series of big data technologies. 

Commodity prices are considered a barometer of a place's economy, and to stabilize prices of key welfare commodities and guarantee their supply is a vital link in the economic development. 

According to requirements from the National Development and Reform Commission, food price monitoring sites have been established in five agricultural produce markets and seven supermarkets in the city of Guiyang, and current market prices of 33 types of food are being supervised daily, including staples, oil, meat, eggs, fish, and vegetables. 

Every morning, officials from Guiyang's development and reform commission visit many agricultural produce markets and supermarkets to collect food prices, and then report them to the monitoring center of the National Development and Reform Commission before 12 pm and release the food price information on the government's official website and the municipal data opening platform in the meantime. 

"Now it is very easy for us to check food prices on these websites and decide where to go based on our own needs," said Li Heng, a resident of Guiyang.

All sales prices of major agricultural products in Guiyang are under close supervision, and if the fluctuation rate of the vegetable price is over 20 percent, and that of meat is over 5 percent, the food price monitoring information system will send warnings to relevant government bodies, which will then implement targeted regulations to stabilize the price.

During important festivals and special occasions, the Guiyang government will intensify their supervision, with special attention paid to the prices of pork, fresh vegetables, and other commodities closely associated with people's daily lives.

When the pork price continued to soar in 2020, the government distributed more than 1,300 metric tons of pork to the market, which efficiently guaranteed the pork supply and stabilized its price during that period.