BEIJING - Farm produce prices broke an eight-week trend of rising last week and fell on sliding demand as the Spring Festival holiday ended, the Ministry of Commerce said Wednesday.

The wholesale prices of 18 staple vegetables fell 5.8 percent week-on-week, with prices of green peppers and cucumbers down 16.7 percent and 15.4 percent, respectively, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Egg prices slid 0.4 percent last week. The pace of decline was 0.3 percentage points faster than one week earlier.

Pork prices dropped 0.8 percent, while prices of beef and mutton gained 0.6 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively.

The wholesale prices of eight aquatic products rose 0.2 percent due to shrinking supply amid the freezing season, the statement said.

Food prices have a one-third weighting in the calculation of China's consumer price index (CPI), a major gauge of inflation. The country's CPI eased to 4.1 percent in December, the slowest rise in 15 months.