The rise of internet-based agricultural supplies: why are brick-and-mortar dealers worried?

As new forms of "agribusiness" such as agricultural-supply e-commerce and mobile technical service platforms keep emerging, the traditional seed sales industry is undergoing change. For the intermediate links of dealers and retailers, will they seize opportunities amid the change, or adjust their course amid the change? Please see this issue's "Market Micro-Survey."

"Cloud Plant Protection" joins hands with "Farm Doctor"

"Online" and "offline" services reach the fields

In the outskirts of Beijing in late July, strawberry growers have already begun preparing for a new planting season. For Wu Di, who works in agricultural technical services, it is also the start of a new round of technical service work. On July 28 and July 30, he held intensive training sessions for berry growers in Pinggu and Changping respectively, with more than 200 people at each session.

Wu Di graduated in 2009 from the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences with a major in plant nutrition. Not long after graduation, he came to Pinggu District and opened his first agricultural-supply retail store. Over five years, he started from selling pesticides and fertilizers, expanded into providing seedlings, and founded Chuangmeili Agricultural Crop Technology Co., Ltd.; built a technical service team and operated two technical service platforms, "Dr. Wu" and "Cloud Plant Protection"; and embraced the internet by cooperating with "Farm Doctor" to combine online and offline services, providing strawberry growers with more timely, convenient and intelligent agricultural technical services. Now, Wu Di's township-level service outlets have increased to five, serving 20,000 mu of peach tree cultivation area and more than 10,000 mu of strawberry planting area.

On July 27, at the Pinggu strawberry planting training session organized by Chuangmeili Agricultural, Chuangmeili Agricultural and "Farm Doctor" reached a cooperation agreement, realizing the connection between "offline" and "online."

"Farm Doctor" is a mobile interactive application created by Zhongnongwen (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. that brings together agricultural technicians and farmers nationwide. At present, it has 5 million registered farmers and 100,000 registered agricultural technicians. When farmers encounter problems in planting, they can upload them in real time in the form of text or images to the "Farm Doctor" mobile application, and agricultural technicians answer online.

⟦NL> "Farm Doctor" CEO Wang Zhaoyong said: "The goal of both sides in cooperating is the same, which is to provide farmers with faster and more convenient technical services for planting." As a mobile application, "Farm Doctor" aims to build a platform for direct communication between farmers and agricultural technical service personnel. Through the invitation code of an agricultural technician they trust, farmers can achieve direct contact with the technician.

At the training session, Wang Zhaoyong explained to farmers how to use the "Farm Doctor" mobile application. Through an on-site demonstration, farmers were asked to add Wu Di's invitation code, and Wu Di could see from his own phone who was following him. In this way, "one-on-one" online communication and service could be carried out. Farmers could promptly send problems they encountered in the form of text or images to the application, and when agricultural technicians on the platform saw them, they would answer promptly. Questions raised by farmers who followed Wu Di would all appear on Wu Di's phone.

Wu Di said: "Our plan is to have an agricultural technician in every village and be able to solve problems encountered in strawberry planting within one to two days. The 'Farm Doctor' mobile application precisely addresses the current difficulty of untimely agricultural technical services."

As a brick-and-mortar dealer, every step of transformation revolves around providing more thoughtful technical services for growing strawberries and peach trees. Wang Zilong, chairman of Beijing Zilong Organic Fruit Production and Marketing Professional Cooperative, said: "He is different from ordinary agricultural-supply stores. He is highly educated, highly skilled and broad-minded. Ordinary agricultural-supply stores just sell goods from home, but he delivers technical services directly into the greenhouses."

Why build the two technical service platforms, "Dr. Wu" and "Cloud Plant Protection"? Wu Di said: "'Dr. Wu' represents in-depth development of technology. We will invite experts and professors to diagnose certain problems; while 'Cloud Plant Protection' uses the concept of the cloud to imply that our technical services will cover more strawberry growers."

Zhang Changshan, chairman of Beijing Zhenshan Xingwang Fruit Production and Marketing Professional Cooperative, has cooperated with Wu Di for four years: "When I first started growing strawberries, I did not understand the technology. At that time, Wu Di came to my greenhouse every week and arrived on time before 10 a.m. every Thursday." Wu Di's technical services basically cover most strawberry growers in Pinggu.

Members of Wu Di's technical service team all come from schools such as the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China Agricultural University, Hebei Agricultural University and Hebei Normal University of Science and Technology, all with bachelor's degrees or above, and they also have long-term cooperation with some strawberry experts.

At the two training sessions, because farmers were about to prepare the land and apply base fertilizer, Wu Di explained in detail to farmers how to apply base fertilizer and what kind of base fertilizer should not be applied, and proposed a comprehensive fertilization plan. Once strawberry diseases break out, they are very difficult to control afterward. To help farmers prevent diseases, Wu Di used one month as a time unit and combined pest and disease prevention packages, telling farmers in advance the key control points and medications for each month, achieving green prevention and control while preventing and controlling the occurrence of pests and diseases.

After finishing the two training sessions, on July 31, Wu Di still had to go to Zhejiang to inspect the strawberry seedling situation. Unlike many strawberry seedling dealers, Wu Di has his own seedling base in Zhejiang. From planting to harvest, Wu Di has to go many times to ensure that the seedlings do not have problems.

Focusing on the two crops of strawberries and peach trees, Wu Di puts the full cultivation plans for these two crops into practice for farmers. Wu Di said: "The premise of whether farmers trust you is that farmers must truly grow safe strawberries and make money." And for Wu Di, when farmers make money, his hard work every year will likewise bear fruit.