This May, few people show interest in over 467 hectares of watermelon in Wenchang. (Photo/Xinhua)

Farmers were busy loading watermelons into trucks in Linwu Village on May 24. (Photo/People.cn)

Watermelon comes into season in May. However, this May, few people showed interest in over 467 hectares of watermelon in Wenchang, southern island province of Hainan. The price was lower than 0.5 yuan per kilogram, which is a record low for the past 20 years, yet it seems as though farmers were set up to suffer great losses.

Several days ago, in front of the village committee of Linwu Village in Wenchang, hundreds of farmers even stopped traffic to sell their watermelons. Although the price was an extremely reasonable 0.6 yuan per kilogram, they still couldn’t find any buyers.

The news that so many watermelons would soon be rotting in the field soon spread. Local government encouraged enterprises and citizens to buy watermelons from Wenchang. Many caring people also came to Wenchang to help the farmers. 

When a reporter from People's Daily Online traveled to Linwu Village on May 24, farmers were busy loading watermelons into trucks, as they finally had enough buyers from other towns and villages.

So far, about 267 hectares of watermelons have been sold, and the remaining melons are expected to be sold out within the next two days.