What are the prospects for agricultural development? Is it a sunrise industry or a sunset industry?
Zhao Yayu: Agriculture is forever a sunrise industry
Agriculture is forever a sunrise industry; agriculture is a low-lying land, this was the consensus several years ago. With the continuous entry of capital and talent, a thriving construction-site scene has emerged, and coupled with government policies promoting land transfer and investment in information infrastructure, agriculture has become another industry to look forward to, which is also the judgment of many people, so entering agriculture is not wrong; of course, Youcai's entry also had unavoidable reasons - I have worked in agriculture for 20 years and don't have the courage to change.
Yimutian, the matchmaking trading platform model has proven successful in other industries, and I believe Yimutian will take further measures after its traffic-driving launch. But I think it got the entry point wrong. Why can't bulk fresh agricultural products go online at this stage? Why must it be either spot goods or acquaintances? This is determined by product characteristics, and also related to the quality and awareness of the operating entities, but this is not the center of our discussion. The status quo is what it is; what is needed is solutions, and I believe this was also Yimutian's original intention, but it reversed cause and effect.
Let me ask a few questions first: Why is it that American big cherries shipped to China are fine for half a month, while Yantai cherries shipped to Beijing often have problems? Why is it that vegetables supplied to Hong Kong, China arrive in three days without problems, while Hebei cabbage shipped to Beijing often has problems? Where is the root of agricultural product safety? How meaningful is testing upon arrival when transport is monitored and tested? The average fertilizer application per unit of land is several times higher than abroad; if the land has problems, can good products be grown?
Answering the above questions, everyone knows the problem lies at the production end. Is it possible for us to help and educate households one by one? Impossible! So what should be done? Whether it's institutions or platforms, they must follow human nature, especially for farmers.
Where is the interest node closest to farmers? At the small-scale origin markets at the village or township level. COFCO using rice processing plants to control farmland is the same principle; this point is the easiest to informatize, the most authentic, and the most fundamental. Extending upstream and downstream from this point is tangible and real, including origin preservation and pre-cooling treatment. Individual households cannot do these things, nor is there any need for them to.
Recently two things deeply moved me:
One thing: a couple of days ago I went to the Zhongguancun Maker Headquarters; it felt like walking into a classroom of senior high school students preparing for exams - the busyness and focus of young entrepreneurs. I attended several project roadshows, the passion of young people and their ideas that always surprise you.
The second thing: recently I participated in the “Internet Training for Agricultural Cooperatives in the Beijing Suburbs” and “Beijing Agriculture Enters Communities” activities organized by the Beijing Municipal Rural Affairs Committee and the Agriculture Bureau. I felt the government's determination and force in promoting “introducing the Internet and innovating the circulation of agricultural products in the Beijing suburbs,” and also felt the desire and expectations of Beijing suburban farms for the Internet.
On one side, young people in Zhongguancun are starting businesses with “Internet+” thinking. On the other side, new farmers are innovating with “+Internet” thinking. On one side, in Zhongguancun, the Internet is already a traditional industry; without pain-point industry support you are destined to disappear in the red ocean. On the other side, suburban farms introducing the Internet are just getting started and full of vitality. Put the two together - one is a red ocean, the other a blue ocean; the gap is astonishing, and the opportunity makes one's mouth water.
The first round will inevitably be this: in Zhongguancun, many young people, carrying the guns of the Internet, are searching various industries, discovering pain points, aiming, and shooting - and an industry or a link comes crashing down. This is the real Internet+ changing the world. After the first round of Internet strafing across industries, I believe each industry will itself pick up Internet weapons to strengthen itself.
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I firmly believe that Internet + agriculture is like an eagle catching a sheep - beautiful but exhausting; agriculture + Internet is like fitting wheels onto the sheep - it will sprint.
Agriculture is forever a sunrise industry and agriculture is a low-lying land; this was the consensus several years ago. With the continuous entry of capital and talent, a thriving construction-site scene has emerged, the low-lying land is constantly being filled in, and tall buildings are constantly rising from the ground. Coupled with the government's strong intervention and pushing the wave, agriculture has become another “real-estate-like industry,” opening a golden decade! We farmers should do something!
Chen Guoding: Agriculture is a natural, continuous “slow” industry
The technologists sitting in CBD offices looking at agriculture see too many opportunities, too much that can be “disrupted”; the practitioners standing in the fields looking at online merchants likewise see too many opportunities - in fact, it's all “the grass is always greener on the other side.” Agriculture is not some “forever sunrise industry,” and of course it is not a sunset industry either; agriculture is a natural, continuous “slow” industry. Investment of capital and talent in agriculture has never stopped; it's just that the plate is too big, the organizational structure is rotten, rural culture and farming civilization have declined, the impact of industrial civilization and the “evil” nature of the dual-structure institutional design, the coercion of utilitarianism, and so on and so forth - so capital and talent disappear like mud oxen into the sea.
In such a harsh environment, farmers and agricultural organizations at the bottom of society can only rely on so-called “acquaintance transactions” rather than fair transactions. Yet the Internet trading platform system precisely provides a path and possibility for fair transactions. Is it possible for Internet trading platforms (2B) to defeat “acquaintance transactions”?
I found that in the discussions of the Yimutian case, opinions almost overwhelmingly treat “acquaintance transactions” as an advantage. This makes me think of how taxis appeared in Britain and were besieged by carriage drivers, and how rickshaw pullers in Shanghai even established trade guilds to block public buses and trams. History always repeats the stories that once happened, time and again in different forms - development proceeds under one obstacle and impediment after another. The 2B development of Chinese agriculture likewise has infinite resistance and obstacles, but these are all insignificant; the platformization of 2B e-commerce is an unstoppable major trend. Yimutian is merely one of the “inch-forces” driving the major trend; more “X-mutians” will join in one after another. The rolling Yangtze River flows east, surging to the sea and never returning - this is the price and inevitability of social progress.
Agricultural product 2B platforms will certainly see astonishing development in the next 5-10 years, even forming a new pattern of agricultural product trading. What changes will the development of agricultural product 2B platforms bring to the traditional agricultural wholesale industry? Or rather, how should the traditional agricultural wholesale industry embrace and then integrate into this transformation of trading forms? This may not be a simple “+Internet” or “Internet+.” Looking back over the past 36 years, China's commercial formats have iterated and replaced each other extremely rapidly; only agricultural product commerce has remained almost unchanged, and the main reason for the lack of change is government “unified planning” - opening a wholesale market or an agricultural product retail market must comply with government planning. This is a monopoly industry - the continuous development of Internet trading platforms will inevitably break this monopoly, and breaking a monopoly is itself a kind of transformation!
If we look at Yimutian or other 2B platforms from the social height of industry transformation, I think we will no longer favor so-called “industry characteristics” like “acquaintance transactions,” nor will we focus on who should be the “sacrifice” pushing this transformation - I recall a line from a Mao Zedong poem: “For the sake of sacrifice, we have great ambition; we dare to make the sun and moon change to a new heaven.”