How can rural e-commerce help agricultural transformation and upgrading? Experts explain
Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, November 13 (Reporters Yu Jiaxin Zhou Ke) “Singles' Day” once again proved the huge market of rural consumption, and the e-commerce that drives rural consumption will benefit even more from the policy “red envelopes”: The State Council recently issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Accelerated Development of Rural E-Commerce." Experts believe the opinions will help agricultural transformation and upgrading, achieve notable results in promoting farmers' entrepreneurship and employment and driving rural poverty alleviation and development, and better unleash the potential of rural consumption.
How can rural e-commerce be developed healthily and rapidly? The opinions clearly define three key tasks: cultivating market entities for rural e-commerce, expanding the application of e-commerce in agriculture and rural areas, and improving the development environment for rural e-commerce, pointing out the direction for the development of rural e-commerce in China.
Wang Sheng, secretary-general of the Rural E-Commerce Research Center of the China E-Commerce Service Industry Alliance, said the introduction of the opinions marks that rural e-commerce work has been incorporated into the national strategy, marks that the comprehensive demonstration of e-commerce entering rural areas, first piloted by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce, has been fully upgraded, and serves as guidance for the construction of the rural market system during the “13th Five-Year Plan” period.
The opinions propose deepening the reform of the rural circulation system, innovating rural business models, cultivating and strengthening market entities for rural e-commerce, strengthening infrastructure construction, improving the policy environment, and accelerating the development of a modern rural commodity circulation and service network that integrates online and offline, covers the whole process, is comprehensively supported, safe and efficient, and convenient and affordable.
Rural e-commerce became a major new highlight of this year's “Double 11,” demonstrating the huge potential of e-commerce development in China's rural areas. Data shows that JD.com's “JD Helpers” covering China's rural market have reached 1,200, its “JD County-Level Service Centers” have approached 700, and its “JD Rural Promoters” have exceeded 120,000. Sales at JD Helpers service stores during “Double 11” were 5 times those of JD's anniversary day, 618.
This year on “Double 11,” the first time Rural Taobao participated in the event, all of the more than 8,000 village points where Rural Taobao has been established generated transactions on that day. Wu Minzhi, senior vice president of Alibaba Group and president of the B2B Business Group, said this let farmers enjoy the happiness brought by the internet wave, truly activated the countryside, and connected rural areas with cities.
“E-commerce makes agricultural production and market demand information more symmetrical, forces the adjustment of the agricultural industrial structure and improves the quality of agricultural products through market demand, and through online sales of agricultural products innovates agricultural production methods. Order agriculture, customized agriculture, crowdfunding agriculture, and pre-sale agriculture will be the mainstream trends leading agricultural production in the future.” Wang Sheng said the development of rural e-commerce has provided new space for agricultural and rural development, not only effectively increasing the income of poor households, but also attracting large numbers of young people to return home to start businesses and find employment. H Reporters learned that in Daji Town, Cao County, Shandong, in 2014 the town's online sales were nearly 500 million, attracting 168 college students returning home and more than 2,500 young migrant workers returning home, effectively improving the rural “hollowing out” phenomenon and increasing the vitality of rural development.
Behind rural e-commerce entrepreneurship is the dilemma of a shortage of e-commerce talent. A large number of farmers have not yet formed the life and consumption habits of going online, and are unfamiliar with the operation and management capabilities of e-commerce, which has become an important factor restricting the development of rural e-commerce. Wang Sheng suggested that the primary task in doing a good job in rural e-commerce is to increase training efforts, popularize e-commerce knowledge, and improve the ability and level of e-commerce application.
According to the opinions, increasing investment in infrastructure construction such as network facilities, hardened roads, and cold-chain logistics, and building a “cloud expressway” for the development of rural e-commerce, will make it more convenient for industrial products and means of production to go to the countryside, and faster and more effective for agricultural specialty products and handicrafts to go to the cities, promoting integrated urban-rural development.
Li Mingtao, vice president of the Research Institute of the China International Electronic Commerce Center, said in response that rural e-commerce, as a national strategy, has become increasingly deeply rooted in people's hearts and is leading the direction of rural economy and rural market system development. When developing local rural e-commerce, all localities should formulate scientific development plans, make full use of existing offline outlet resources, avoid starting from scratch, make full use of socialized platform resources, avoid “Great Leap Forward”-style construction of e-commerce parks and e-commerce platforms, and continuously explore and try e-commerce service models suitable for local development.