Supply and marketing cooperatives nationwide deepen reform to create new advantages in serving agriculture
Data recently released by the All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives show that in the first half of this year the system as a whole achieved cumulative sales of 18,483.2 billion yuan, up 13.6% year on year. Of this, sales at the county level and below totaled 13,752.2 billion yuan, up 12.8% year on year, accounting for 74.4% of the system's total sales. In serving “agriculture, rural areas and farmers,” the supply and marketing cooperatives once again delivered a stellar report card.
“Putting service to agriculture first and always serving agriculture, working for agriculture and bearing the name of agriculture is the direction the supply and marketing cooperative system has unswervingly upheld.” Wang Xia, director of the Council of the All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives, said that to continue running the supply and marketing cooperatives well under new historical conditions, it is necessary to follow the overall requirements set out in the “Decision on Deepening the Comprehensive Reform of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives” issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council, innovate circulation methods, expand service areas and enhance service capacity, so that supply and marketing cooperatives become an irreplaceable and indispensable important force driving rural economic and social development and contribute more to accelerating the process of agricultural modernization.
Innovating circulation methods——
Grasping both physical entities and e-commerce, building an “online supply and marketing cooperative”
In July, the Jiangnan region sweltered under the blazing sun. At the small shop at the entrance of Huachuantang Village, Gaojia Town, Qujiang District, Quzhou, Zhejiang, the atmosphere was just as heated: several villagers were gathered around a computer, discussing something animatedly. They were buying shirts online. At the shop entrance, the bright orange “Rural Tao” sign was particularly eye-catching.
“In the past, we country folk neither knew how to shop online nor dared to. Express delivery could not reach the village, and if we managed to ask someone to buy something for us, we still had to go to town to pick it up, which was a lot of trouble. Now the village shop has been upgraded to a ‘Rural Tao’ outlet, equipped with a computer, and it even collects parcels for villagers free of charge, letting us villagers enjoy the convenience of online shopping too.” said Bao Qifang, a 40-year-old villager.
“Rural Tao” is an online service brand established by the Quzhou supply and marketing cooperative. It has now grown to more than 110 outlets, of which more than half have average monthly transaction volumes exceeding 5,000 yuan. Besides helping farmers buy goods online, the service stations also offer convenience services such as paying miscellaneous fees on behalf of residents and collecting and dispatching express deliveries.
Commodity circulation is the supply and marketing cooperatives' “old trade,” and how to do that “old trade” well is the “first hurdle” the cooperatives face in reform. The “Decision on Deepening the Comprehensive Reform of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives” explicitly proposes to “adapt to the new trend of profound changes in business models and consumption patterns, accelerate the development of e-commerce in supply and marketing cooperatives, form an integrated operation of online transactions, warehousing and logistics, and terminal distribution, and achieve integrated online and offline development.” This points the way for innovation in the circulation model of supply and marketing cooperatives.
Adapting to the times and bravely riding the tide. In May this year, 14 enterprises within the All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives initiated the establishment of the China Supply and Marketing E-Commerce Development Alliance, building a nationwide e-commerce platform and creating an “online supply and marketing cooperative.” In the first half of the year, the number of e-commerce enterprises operating within the national supply and marketing cooperative system reached 1,074, an increase of 165 over the previous year, and the system as a whole achieved e-commerce sales of 8.28 billion yuan.
With one hand grasping e-commerce and the other grasping physical networks. Supply and marketing cooperatives in Hebei, Shanghai, Shandong and other places have leveraged advantages such as numerous community outlets and complete networks to actively carry out services such as direct sales of agricultural products and door-to-door delivery of daily consumer goods, striving to alleviate the “last mile” problem in serving agriculture.
Expanding service areas——
Aiming at farmers' new needs, building new service platforms
In May, Shandong experienced persistent sunny, hot and rainless weather, and many farmers worried it might affect the harvest. Yet Hu Guangying, a villager from Bahu Town, Hedong District, Linyi, who works in the provincial capital, was not worried: “I have already entrusted my farmland to the supply and marketing cooperative. Sowing, watering and harvesting are all taken care of. Farming is much less worrisome now.”
Serving “agriculture, rural areas and farmers,” pressing forward despite difficulties. The “Decision” proposes that the national supply and marketing cooperative system should “orient itself toward agricultural modernization and toward farmers' production and daily life, promote the extension of supply and marketing cooperatives from circulation services to full-process agricultural socialized services and the expansion into all-round urban and rural community services, accelerate the formation of a comprehensive, large-scale and sustainable agricultural service system, and provide farmers with convenient, affordable, safe and high-quality services in key areas and links such as agricultural inputs supply, agricultural product circulation and rural services.”
Land trusteeship is flourishing. Focusing on solving problems such as “who will farm the land” and “how the land will be farmed,” Shandong, Hunan, Chongqing, Sichuan and other places have explored establishing land transfer cooperatives, guiding farmers to transfer land contractual management rights through subcontracting, leasing, share cooperation and other forms, and developing various forms of appropriately scaled operations. At present, the national supply and marketing cooperative system has taken more than 10 million mu of land under trusteeship, and more and more farmers are embarking on an “easy” path to prosperity.
Financial cooperation is in full swing. The Hebei supply and marketing cooperatives adhere to the principle of “cooperative finance, inclusive service to agriculture, rural areas and farmers” and have created a rural cooperative financial service system centered on mutual fund assistance, credit guarantees and cooperative insurance. Today, more than 20 counties (cities) across the province have carried out internal fund mutual assistance within cooperatives, providing more than 130 million yuan in funds for the production and daily life of more than 20,000 members. A new pattern of cooperative finance is gradually taking shape, with “cooperative finance supermarkets at the grassroots level and cooperative finance leaders at the provincial level.”
Comprehensive services advance step by step. The Zhejiang supply and marketing cooperatives have implemented the “Thousand Villages, Thousand Cooperatives Convenience Project,” working with village committees to renovate and upgrade village-level comprehensive service cooperatives, adding cultural, sports and entertainment and health service content, and building village-level comprehensive service cooperatives into new platforms providing diversified services to farmers. At present, based on the “two stores” for daily consumer goods and agricultural inputs, the province has built 4,205 comprehensive service cooperatives with public-interest service functions, and farmers in thousands of households enjoy the same services as city residents.
Improving the organizational system——
Expanding the coverage of grassroots organizations, driving capacity to a new level
In recent years, in Yunyang, Chongqing, a crystal pear brand called “Dake” has gradually become familiar. This specialized cooperative, led by the Yunyang County supply and marketing cooperative, has developed more than 25,000 mu of pear orchards and, using the supply and marketing cooperative's production and sales channels, carries out unified production, order-based sales and profit sharing, increasing each fruit-growing household's income by an average of 3,000 yuan per year. The national supply and marketing cooperative system already has 114,300 specialized cooperatives like this. A system of farmer cooperative federations integrating county, township and village levels has already taken shape.
At the village level, supply and marketing cooperatives rely on their network service advantages to guide village “two committees” organizations and actively lead the establishment of farmer cooperatives, building a “village committee + farmer cooperative + farming households” “three-in-one” development model.
At the township level, supply and marketing cooperatives rely on farmer cooperatives and join with other farmer cooperatives in the region to establish farmer cooperative federations, forming scale advantages and turning grassroots cooperatives into substantive service platforms that combine operational, public-interest and policy functions.
At the county seat level, relying on county-level cooperatives and with township farmer cooperative federations as members, comprehensive farmer cooperative federations spanning industries and regions are established, coordinating the advancement of the organizational system, network service system and cooperative financial system, and achieving integrated development of county, township and village levels.
At present, 991 county-level cooperatives nationwide have taken the lead in establishing rural cooperative economic organization federations, accounting for 41% of all county-level cooperatives; 344 county-level supply and marketing cooperatives in 28 provinces have carried out comprehensive reform pilots. A new organizational framework for supply and marketing cooperatives at the county level and below, with specialized cooperatives, agricultural product associations and crop hospitals as the main bodies, has initially taken shape.