When agriculture meets the internet, what changes will it bring to agricultural development?

“Ganchang Xiaozhan” joins hands with millions of households, solving the difficulty of selling agricultural products

Renshou, Sichuan, is a typical major agricultural county. It has many golden signboards such as “National Quality Fruit Base County,” “National Major Quality Live Pig Transfer-Out County,” and “Hometown of Loquat in China.” However, the long-standing “difficulty of selling and buying” is still an obstacle that farmers find hard to overcome in increasing their incomes.

How to solve the problem? Through repeated village-by-village household surveys and repeated special meetings, in early 2014, Renshou County decided to give priority to the development of e-commerce, established an e-commerce association, and set up an e-commerce industry development fund. Last May, it officially launched e-commerce into rural areas.

⟦NL> “Our loquats come down from the trees one day, and people in Beijing and Shanghai can taste the fresh fruit the next day!” It was the peak loquat sales season, and 61-year-old Xu Youkun of Feiyue Village, Wengong Town, was full of pride. Since e-commerce entered the village last year, he has had a dual identity: head of the village fruit industry professional cooperative and vice president of the county e-commerce association.

The cooperative has more than 130 households, with an annual loquat output of nearly 300,000 jin. In recent years, output has grown larger and larger, but sales channels have become more and more worrying. This year was different. During the county-held “Online Loquat Festival,” their price per jin increased by 4—8 yuan compared with previous years. On the opening day alone, they sold more than 10,000 jin, with income of more than 200,000 yuan. “In the past, I only knew how to grow, and did not really understand selling. Thanks to the government's heartfelt help, we entered the 'Ganchang Xiaozhan.'” Xu Youkun said.

Building “Ganchang Xiaozhan” in villages and towns, joining hands with millions of households, and connecting to the large market - this is one of Renshou's moves in exploring e-commerce into villages.

Wang Weijin, deputy secretary of the Renshou County Party Committee, said that the county has more than 400 administrative villages, and each village has its own specialty agricultural products. The county has made great efforts to sell these products externally through internet platforms.

When building “Ganchang Xiaozhan,” what if there is a shortage of people? Renshou County created a training system for online merchant practitioners, and orderly promoted multi-level training for vocational education students, college student village officials, “Ganchang Xiaozhan” administrators, and others. In 2014, the number of people trained exceeded 10,000, and 5,020 e-commerce practitioners were incubated, of whom more than 1,400 successfully opened stores.

Wang Xiaofang, a young woman from Renshou County town, switched from being a clothing salesperson to an online merchant in Shuili Village, with considerable income. She said that thanks to the online merchant training organized by the county last year, after a month and a half of study, she passed the three thresholds of beginner, intermediate, and advanced, and received a practitioner qualification certificate.

Large-scale, full-coverage e-commerce into rural areas not only made buying and selling more convenient, but also accelerated farmers' dream of a moderately prosperous life: in 2010, the county's per capita net income of farmers was 5,621 yuan, while last year it jumped to 9,870 yuan. “'Ganchang Xiaozhan' lets farmers become online merchants, realizes the localization of information flow, cash flow, logistics, and business flow, and opens a new era of rural e-commerce,” said an industry expert.

Cross-sector integration, two-way circulation, “on the same road to moderate prosperity, not one household left behind”

“Cross-sector integration, two-way circulation” is another innovative model of Renshou County.

In response to various projects supporting the construction of a new countryside, Renshou County integrated existing logistics, rural stores, financial services, and large e-commerce enterprise resources across sectors, to serve rural areas and farmers to the greatest extent.

“Ganchang Xiaozhan” connects rural credit basic data and explores carrying out farmer credit loan services. To solve the last kilometer of logistics, “Ganchang Xiaozhan” cooperates with postal services and JD.com, optimizes routes, and realizes low-cost “two-way logistics.”

Now, Renshou County has built one county-level e-commerce service center, 15 township regional distribution centers, 60 township-level e-commerce service stations, and 400 village-level e-commerce service points. The average annual growth of e-commerce transaction volume is more than 30%, and logistics costs have dropped by more than 20%. In the first quarter of 2015, 2,023 new e-commerce practitioners were trained; the average daily purchasing quantity of township and village-level “Ganchang Xiaozhan” exceeded 230 items.

Farmers going online to do business has become a fashion and trend in Renshou County.

Ye Cuiyun, who is over 50 years old and from Shuili Village, talked about the changes in selling her free-range eggs: in the past, selling eggs required walking several li of mountain roads and carrying them in a basket to the market, and others still did not recognize them, so they could not fetch a good price. Sometimes when farm work was busy, the eggs would sit for dozens of days, and good eggs turned bad. Since the village built “Ganchang Xiaozhan,” Ye Cuiyun can sell them for a good price while sitting at home.

Wan Xiaoling, who lives in Zhongxiang Town, suffered from polio since childhood and could not find a good employment path. After participating in the county's online merchant training class in October last year, she opened an online store on Taobao and gave it an interesting name, “Guifei Xiao.” Relying on local fruit industry resources, since opening the store she has sold more than 30,000 jin of the fruit “Buzhihuo,” with turnover reaching more than 100,000 yuan. She truly smiles happily: “Without e-commerce into rural areas, there would be no me today.”

In Renshou, e-commerce connects thousands of households and benefits ordinary people, making college students envious too. A group of returning college students and outside college students have opened “Taobao” stores one after another. Li Yunhao, 23 years old, after graduating with a bachelor's degree from a university in Chengdu last August, went straight to Renshou County to participate in online merchant training. Now his online store's monthly net income is stable at more than 10,000 yuan.