China has 3,700 Yinong Information Societies, connecting the last kilometer of service
Government plus market: 3,700 Yinong Information Societies connect the “last kilometer” of service
Government “builds the road”, enterprises “run the vehicles”, farmers “collect the goods”
Connect information to villages over the “last kilometer”, letting farmers enjoy equal public services
“With Yinong Information Societies, we farmers can also receive goods at our doorstep just like city people.” Holding a barrel of soybean oil that had just been delivered to his home, Li Jinglu, a farmer in Xun County, Henan, said with emotion. “When this Yinong Society opened in the village before the Chinese New Year, it could pay mobile phone bills on our behalf, and we could also buy agricultural supplies and daily necessities online. People come and go, and it is quite lively.”
⟦NL>⟦/NL⟧ The Yinong Information Society Li Jinglu mentioned is not large, about 30 sq m. The most eye-catching items are the mobile phone terminals placed on the display stand, as well as products such as telephones and computers. On the wall also hang display boards marked “Telecom Zone, Finance Zone, JD.com (online shopping) Zone, Mobile App Download Zone.”
Guo Zhonghua, a 40-year-old information officer at the Yinong Society, said: “Here we can help villagers with all kinds of online services, and it can also serve as a logistics center. Things villagers buy online can first be delivered to me, and then I help distribute them. Let villagers settle major matters without leaving the village and minor matters without leaving home.” In just half a year, such a small “village-level information service station” helped surrounding villagers pay more than 30,000 yuan in fees, and placed online orders on their behalf for more than 10,000 jin of wheat seed and more than 30 tonnes of fertilizer. The Yinong Society's monthly turnover increased to more than 30,000 yuan, and Guo Zhonghua became more and more motivated.
Yinong Information Societies are the vehicle for the Ministry of Agriculture's pilot project to bring information into villages and households. In 2014, the Ministry of Agriculture built a batch of village-level information service stations in 22 pilot counties across 10 pilot provinces and municipalities including Beijing, Liaoning, Jilin and Henan, promoting the connection of various agricultural public-interest services, convenience services and e-commerce resources to village-level stations, and initially forming a sustainable operating mechanism. As of now, 3,700 villages nationwide have established Yinong Information Societies.
According to reports, Yinong Information Societies mainly provide four types of services: First, agricultural public-interest services. For example, 12316 remote expert diagnosis and treatment of animal and plant diseases, and policy, technology and market information consultation services are all provided to farmers free of charge. Second, convenience services. These include water, electricity and gas, communications, finance, insurance, ticketing, medical appointments, legal consultation and other services. Third, e-commerce. This includes e-commerce for agricultural products, agricultural supplies and daily necessities, and services such as rural logistics agency services. Fourth, training and experience services. These include training on new agricultural technologies, new varieties and new products, and access to information technology and product experiences. Zhang Hecheng, director of the Department of Market and Economic Information of the Ministry of Agriculture, said: “We hope that through the project of bringing information into villages and households, we can solve the ‘last kilometer’ of service, so that farmers can enjoy quick services without leaving the village, and through the internet let farmers enjoy equalized public services between urban and rural areas.”
“Bringing information into villages and households promotes deep integration of the internet's innovative achievements with agricultural production, operation, management and services, and is of great significance for transforming the mode of agricultural development and innovating the mode of agricultural administrative management.” Chen Xiaohua, Vice Minister of Agriculture, said that ultimately China's 600,000 administrative villages will be connected into one large network, forming agricultural big data, improving the government's decision-making capacity and level, and accurately pushing information to farmers and new types of agricultural business entities.
Information reaches households precisely, services are convenient in villages, and a sustainable mechanism is being explored
Who pays for building Yinong Information Societies? Who operates them? Can they be sustainable?
Zhang Hecheng said: “The key to the success of bringing information into villages and households is to coordinate the two types of resources, agricultural public-interest services and rural socialized services, and build a trinity promotion mechanism of ‘government, service providers and operators’, so as to achieve precise information to households and convenient services in villages, and explore and establish a sustainable development mechanism in which the government ‘builds the road’, enterprises ‘run the vehicles’ and farmers ‘collect the goods’.”
Since last year, e-commerce companies such as Alibaba and JD.com have separately implemented “thousand counties, ten thousand villages” and “channel sinking” strategies. Many enterprises regard rural areas as a “blue ocean” and are willing to use the Ministry of Agriculture's platform for bringing information into villages and households to open up rural markets. By bringing Yinong Information Societies into villages and encouraging e-commerce enterprise service stations to sink downward, localities are focusing on exploring a feasible path for rural informatization.
Li Yong, chairman of Nongxintong Group, the operator of Henan Province's pilot project for bringing information into villages and households, introduced the operating model of “building the road, running the vehicles, collecting the goods”: government departments are responsible for integrating public-interest resources, providing public-interest services and coordinating the building of the information superhighway; operators are responsible for the construction and specific operation of village-level information stations; service providers, including telecom operators, platform e-commerce companies and financial service providers, are responsible for providing various commercial services and channels, and obtain revenue by expanding market scale.
“We have done calculations. If a telecom operator sets up a point in a rural area or township, a single store needs an investment of 100,000 yuan. Relying on existing resources or channels and looking for agricultural supply stores, supermarkets and so on that can cooperate, the average cost is only 10,000-15,000 yuan, so the input cost is not large.” Li Yong said that after the platform is set up, telecom operators, platform e-commerce companies and others interested in opening up rural markets are all willing to cooperate with Yinong Societies and pay a certain proportion of rebates based on sales. “In this way, without relying on government investment, enterprises open up markets, farmers get benefits, and multiple parties win together, so this matter can continue.”
The “digital divide” remains huge, and more than 70% of farmers do not use the internet
In the process of pilot construction, Yinong Information Societies also encountered difficulties.
Development is uneven across regions. At present, there is still a relatively large “digital divide” between China's urban and rural areas. More than 50,000 administrative villages nationwide still do not have broadband access, fewer than 30% of rural households own computers, and more than 70% of farmers do not use the internet. Last year, the operating revenue of agricultural product e-commerce exceeded 100 billion yuan, accounting for about 3% of total agricultural product sales, about 7 percentage points lower than the proportion of online retail sales of consumer goods in society.
“At the funding level, government investment is also relatively important.” Xue Hong, director of the Market Information Division of the Henan Provincial Department of Agriculture, said that during Henan's pilot process, the Ministry of Agriculture provided 3 million yuan in guiding funds, and the province, cities and counties also secured 5.54 million yuan in funding support. However, because there are a great number of village-level information service stations, and investment in storefront production and installation, system development and daily operation and maintenance is relatively large, there is still a fairly large funding gap. For example, in Shan County, Sanmenxia, producing and installing one storefront requires an average investment of nearly 4,000 yuan. “It is suggested that finance increase support for bringing information into villages and households, and give certain subsidies for the early-stage construction of information societies.”
Resource integration and sharing are also difficult. Judging from the operation of village-level information service stations already built, services such as finance, electricity, medical care, village affairs disclosure and government affairs disclosure involve multiple departments, and resource coordination and integration are relatively difficult. “The number of departments and enterprises stationed in village-level information service stations is still considerably short of what was envisaged, the service content carried out by village-level information service stations is not rich enough, and business transaction volume is still relatively low.” Zhang Hecheng said.
A commercial mechanism for sustainable development has been initially established, but the operation supervision system is not yet sound. “At the beginning of the pilot, the Ministry of Agriculture proposed actively exploring a benefit exchange mechanism of ‘wool comes from the ox’. Now this mechanism has begun to take shape, but there are still many systems that need to be explored. For example, the management and reward and punishment mechanism for information officers urgently needs to be improved, which requires efforts in multiple aspects such as early-stage training, informatization management and later-stage supervision.” Li Yong said.