Chinese real estate developer Central China Real Estate allowed customers to pay for part of the housing in new buildings with food.

As a down payment the company began to accept garlic and wheat grown on farms, Bloomberg reported.

Central China offered to pay citizens up to 160,000 yuan for grain to help them become shareholders in the River Mansion apartment complex under construction in Shangqiu, Henan province. The developer is trying to attract more customers for its projects by accepting crops as payment.

Such a benefit looks very profitable for farmers: a kilogram of wheat will cost four yuan per kilogram in a transaction with Central China, while state-owned warehouses are prepared to pay a maximum of 3-3.1 yuan per kilogram. A month earlier, the company offered to buy the garlic crop at 10 yuan per kilogram, while the wholesale price of the commodity is 6.92 yuan, China's Ministry of Commerce reported.

It is noted that Henan province is landlocked, but is considered the largest producer of grain in China - recently the region gathered an unprecedentedly large harvest of winter wheat.