How Brand Agriculture Can Embrace New Opportunities in the Capital Era
Editor's Note
In modern corporate operations, brand management is often a company's core business strategy and an important criterion by which the capital market evaluates a company, determining whether the company can obtain greater development opportunities. The same is true for the agriculture industry: for brands to grow bigger and industrial clusters to take shape, the support of capital is indispensable. Recently, the 2015 Brand Agriculture Forum, jointly organized by the China Agricultural Products Marketing Association and this newspaper, was held in Fuzhou. With the theme of “Brand and Finance,” experts and representatives at the forum held in-depth discussions on the path to mutual benefit and win-win interaction between brand agriculture and financial capital.
How should modern agriculture develop, and how should brand agriculture upgrade? In the tide of development, more and more social capital and industrial funds are entering the agricultural sector through various channels. Through equity financing, investment-loan combinations and other methods, industrial capital guides funds and good projects to connect, playing a huge role in industrial upgrading, brand building, competitiveness improvement and industry consolidation.
Adding Fuel to the Fire for Revitalizing Distinctive Industries
The world's goji berries are in China, China's goji berries are in Ningxia, and Zhongning goji berries are the finest under heaven. Zhongning County in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is the world's birthplace, authentic place of origin and core production area of goji berries. Goji berry is Ningxia's leading industry. As of the end of 2014, the planting area reached 850,000 mu, the annual output was 130,000 tons, and the annual output value reached 5 billion yuan.
However, while Ningxia Zhongning goji berries developed rapidly, there also existed problems such as insufficiently systematic research on the active components of goji berries, lagging development of functional health food products from goji berries, a not-high-enough level of deep processing of goji berries, and a lack of high-value-added products with market competitiveness. To accelerate the transformation and upgrading of the Zhongning goji berry industry, in early 2015 Zhongning County joined with Ningxia Agricultural Investment Company, Beijing Zhongnong Kelian Investment Fund and strong local enterprises in Zhongning to initiate the establishment of the Zhongning Goji Berry Industry Investment Fund.
“Plant a parasol tree, and the phoenix will come.” According to Sun Xuejun, director of the Zhongning County Goji Berry Bureau, Zhongning County specially issued the “Zhongning Goji Berry Industry Development Plan (2015-2020)” to optimize the investment and financing environment for the county's goji berry industry.
The goji berry industry investment fund's support for the goji berry sector is not about sprinkling pepper everywhere or making superficial gestures. Sun Xuejun said that through the operation and promotion of the goji berry industry fund, more and more social capital and resources are turning their attention to the Zhongning goji berry industry. On the basis of an average price increase of 38.2% last year for dried Zhongning goji berries, prices rose by another 16.3% on average from January to September this year, the average price of fresh goji berries reached more than 300 yuan/kg, and farmers' cash income from the goji berry industry reached 410 million yuan. Zhongning goji berries have become the core brand of China's goji berry industry and in September this year won the title of “2015 Most Consumer-Favored Regional Public Brand of Chinese Agricultural Products.”
Liu Hongyang, deputy county magistrate of Zhongning County, said with pride that through market-oriented operation of the goji berry industry fund, the Zhongning goji berry brand has become increasingly prominent, achieving a virtuous cycle and mutually beneficial win-win between industry and capital.
In Yunnan Province, China, the pace of using capital to boost the construction of plateau-characteristic modern agriculture is even further ahead. As is well known, Yunnan is one of the provinces in China richest in distinctive agricultural resources. In recent years, based on its own advantages, Yunnan has persisted in playing the “plateau card and taking the distinctive road,” embarking on a path of independent development of plateau-characteristic agriculture and building a convenient and efficient bridge between capital and agriculture.
Huiyuan Group invested 1 billion yuan in Pu'er City to build a juice processing production line, Mengniu Group invested 500 million yuan in Kunming City to build a dairy processing production line, and Conba Group invested 400 million yuan in Qujing City to build a medicinal materials processing production line…… In recent years, Yunnan's agricultural investment attraction has maintained a high growth rate of more than 20% for consecutive years. In 2014, the province's agricultural investment attraction exceeded the 20 billion yuan mark; the entry of capital has also further activated the internal impetus for the development of Yunnan's plateau-characteristic agriculture.
Speaking about the achievements of mutually beneficial cooperation between industrial capital and Yunnan agriculture, Du Jianhui, deputy director of the Yunnan Provincial Department of Agriculture, told reporters that at present there are as many as hundreds of enterprises from outside the province investing in deep processing of agricultural products in Yunnan, and the solid industrial foundation and brand system provide strong brand support for capital entering agriculture.