Internet Plus Agriculture Is Not the Same as E-commerce Going to the Countryside
Over the past year, facing the blue ocean of the future, whether it is giants like Taobao and JD.com or newcomers like Ganje, from collectively “painting walls” to setting up service stations to opening e-commerce industrial parks, e-commerce companies have been rushing to the countryside to “stake out their territory.” Faced with this strong new trend, local governments everywhere also hope to use it to boost the local economy and create highlight projects. For a time, everyone was opening online stores and every village was doing e-commerce, and agricultural e-commerce seemed to be in full swing.
But behind the bustle lurks a limited or even mistaken understanding of “Internet Plus Agriculture.” Amid the clamor, how should administrators everywhere, especially agricultural authorities, respond? “Internet Plus Agriculture is absolutely not just e-commerce going to the countryside.” On December 4, the province's first agricultural informatization work conference offered calm reflection.
A Breakthrough
High-quality agricultural products ride the e-commerce express and sell well nationwide
At midnight on December 12, on the big screen at the Western (Mengyang) Agricultural Products E-commerce Incubation Park, the numbers began to jump: 7 orders per second, and in 10 minutes the transaction value reached 20184 yuan. Jintang red heart pomelo was riding the e-commerce express to be sold nationwide.
This was a marketing campaign launched by the incubation park together with the Taobao Sichuan Pavilion during “Double 12,” testing the interaction between traditional agricultural wholesale and e-commerce. “Farmers earn 5 mao more per jin, and 5000 yuan more per mu.” said Liu Yuan, head of the Taobao Sichuan Pavilion.
Just one month earlier, agricultural e-commerce had already shown its “magic” in Sichuan. On November 11, Anyue lemon e-commerce transaction value reached more than 4900 yuan. “Second nationwide; first place is Chu Orange.” said Xu Zhixun, secretary of the Anyue County Party Committee. Yibin tea enterprises also achieved remarkable results: on “Double 11” that day, 6 enterprises including Chuanhong and Chuancha sold 12.1549 million yuan through a single internet connection.
It was not only flagship products like lemons and tea. In December, Guanghan major grain grower Leng Xiaolian sold Guanghan's first online order of bulk grain through “Mai Liang Wang,” while more than 70 major grain growers locally had already sold 5000 tons of grain online. On December 3, the physical store of the Western · Sichuan Neijiang Aquatic Products E-commerce Mall officially opened, with more than 50 fishery-related enterprises settling in, facilitating nearly 100 million yuan in offline fresh fish transactions. “Our goal is to build Sichuan's No. 1 aquatic products e-commerce platform.” said the head of the Neijiang Agriculture Bureau.
“The province's ‘Internet Plus Agricultural Operations’ has achieved notable results in applications across multiple channels, multiple paths, and multiple platforms.” Tu Jianhua, deputy director of the Provincial Department of Agriculture, told reporters.
Xu Yong, director of the Market Division of the Provincial Department of Agriculture, introduced that there are mainly two approaches: first, building self-owned professional platforms, such as the Chinese Medicinal Materials World Network, which has become a national benchmark for prices and sales in the Chinese medicinal materials market, Maiwei Network, which has become an important window for localized online sales and offline experience of agricultural products and leisure agriculture, and platforms such as the Chengdu Wenjiang District Flower E-commerce Center, Tongwei Quannonghui, Luzhou “Xumu Gou · Tianxianpei,” and Neijiang “Yu Wang Tianxia”; second, relying on third-party platforms, such as Zhao Hailing, a girl from Qingchuan, selling wood ear mushrooms online with annual sales of more than 5 million yuan, while Renshou became the country's first e-commerce pilot county on a third-party e-commerce platform, with 100,000 kg of loquats sold online.
Behind the cases and numbers is the fact that many high-quality agricultural products in Sichuan did indeed catch this e-commerce express in this wave and achieve “selling well nationwide.”
B Misunderstandings
Many people think “Internet Plus Agriculture” means opening online stores
But an expert who declined to be named said that in fact the proportion of e-commerce online sales is still just a drop in the bucket. The “eye-catching” effect created by combining the most rustic agricultural products with the most fashionable internet is far greater than the actual effect. All parties are just making noise. “Everyone lights a fire, every village sends up smoke, burning money plus human-wave tactics. After the noise dies down, only a few survive.”
The reporter's investigation also found that many e-commerce enterprises opening service stations in the countryside have the purpose of obtaining projects or “staking out territory.” Many stations are vacant, and in fact they put insufficient or even weak effort into bringing agricultural products into the city. In a certain popular village that often serves as an inspection point for various meetings, an e-commerce service station had been operating for 7 months and had only helped farmers make purchases on their behalf worth more than 40000 yuan, while sales of local specialty agricultural products were still zero. This is not an isolated case in the province.
At the Second Western E-commerce Forum held in Chengdu in October this year, many experts also pointed out that agricultural e-commerce must first let farmers make money rather than simply spend money.
In the view of Qian Liang, director of the Information Center of the Provincial Department of Agriculture, agricultural e-commerce should include several major sections: agricultural inputs going to the countryside, agricultural products entering the city, and online ordering with offline experience for leisure agriculture. It is not only industrial goods and agricultural inputs going to the countryside. He is even more worried about the quality and safety of agricultural products behind this blossoming everywhere. “Once a problem occurs, it will deal a shock to the entire industry.”
It is precisely this momentum of e-commerce entering villages, “wild flowers increasingly dazzle the eyes,” plus the various interest considerations of relevant parties, and the limited understanding in many places of the new thing that is agricultural informatization, that in the eyes of quite many people agricultural e-commerce is synonymous with “Internet Plus Agriculture.”
Qian Liang has been invited many times to cities and counties to teach courses on agricultural informatization. When he asked what “Internet Plus Agriculture” is, 95% of the attendees thought it was agricultural e-commerce. “Many people, including those in agricultural departments, are only vaguely aware. If they think agricultural e-commerce represents agricultural informatization and that simply opening a few online stores is enough, then the direction is wrong.” Tu Jianhua said at the provincial agricultural informatization work conference.
C Direction
Use informatization to promote transformation in the four major areas of production, operation, management, and services
“Internet Plus Agriculture,” this marriage of the rustic and the modern, the fast and the slow, how can it go further?
At the provincial agricultural informatization work conference, Tu Jianhua first clarified the concept, making clear that what “Internet Plus Agriculture” adds is modern agriculture, not merely agricultural products. With modern information technology as the breakthrough, information flow should regulate the entire process of agricultural activity, including full use of information resources, highly intelligent infrastructure and equipment, automation of agricultural operation techniques, and networked agricultural operation and management information.
How specifically to break through? Tu Jianhua believes the key is to use informatization to promote the four major transformations in agricultural production, operation, management, and service methods, and to advance targeted poverty alleviation. All localities must do a good job of demonstrations around these aspects.
In agricultural production, at the beginning of this year, Sichuan Huapu Agriculture invested 60 million yuan to comprehensively advance an Internet of Things system on a 20000-mu kiwifruit base in Cangxi. Base workers using phones equipped with an APP could achieve intelligent operation of the park's production management. “In the past, watering once required 400 labor-days; now it only takes 3 labor-days.” said company boss Wang Gui, noting that precision smart agriculture is comprehensively replacing the traditional experience-based agriculture of the past.
Even for agricultural e-commerce in the operational field, Tu Jianhua believes one must never try to grasp everything at once. “Based on local leading industries, cultivate 1-2 benchmark-style agricultural e-commerce platforms for the industry, such as Anyue focusing on lemons, Panzhihua on mangoes, Huili focusing on pomegranates, and so on. You cannot sell everything and then have a say in nothing.” He said it is also necessary to work on the formulation of standards and specifications and the formation of brands.
In August this year, China's first “Chinese Medicinal Materials E-commerce Standard” was approved in Chengdu, changing the model of pricing Chinese medicinal materials by inspecting the goods. This was precisely a breakthrough after 10 years by the local e-commerce company Chinese Medicinal Materials World Network. “This is foundational work for agricultural e-commerce, and through it one gains a say in the industry.” Qian Liang believes that at the same time, the platform will also become a symbol of quality and credibility, forming a brand.
In management and services, Xu Yong believes the main approach is to establish and apply big data, arrange agricultural production according to consumer orientation, supervise the quality and safety of agricultural products through information traceability, and cover all aspects involving agricultural non-point source pollution and pest and disease monitoring, land rights confirmation management, and management of the three rural assets, providing technical, financial, insurance, and other services according to farmers' needs.
Facing the major matter of industrial poverty alleviation, Tu Jianhua said the focus should be on “one village, one product, one outlet,” and that “a village must have one leading industry and must sell products around that leading industry, rather than following the crowd and making noise.”