Cheap vegetables hurting farmers will become history, as big data integrates into agricultural production

Since last year, the situation of cheap vegetables hurting farmers and cheap fruit hurting farmers has occurred frequently. Apart from calling on everyone to buy some charity vegetables, there seems to be no other way. As for why this phenomenon occurs, what experts say most often is that the planting area has expanded and the market capacity is limited. How can farmers know from the very beginning what they should plant? In the "Internet Plus" era, this problem can be calculated through big data.

The application of big data lets farmers see where market demand lies and which products sell well, so from then on farming is no longer blind.

In Liaoning Province, in a normal year, black beans are generally sown directly from late May to early to mid-June. But in the farmland of Sandaogang Village, Majiadian Town, Donggang City, in what should be the sowing season, quite a few black bean seedlings have already grown. The grower on this land is local agricultural product e-commerce operator Zhang Yupeng. Why did he plant so early?

Zhang Yupeng: First, the black bean variety I chose has a relatively long growth period and is a late-maturing variety, so it needs to be planted earlier. Second, the black beans I grow do not use chemical fertilizers, and the plants grow relatively slowly, so they also need to be planted a bit earlier.

Sowing half a month early means taking the risk of the seeds being killed by frost. To others this seems somewhat crazy, but there is something even crazier. Zhang Yupeng grows black beans to press oil, but before the Spring Festival, he had already sold all of this black bean oil, which had not even been planted in the ground yet, through online presales. Zhang Yupeng:

Zhang Yupeng: Before the Spring Festival, I ran a ten-day presale, and sales exceeded 10 million, so the biggest problem now is that production is a bit unable to keep up with the pace.

Presales exceeding 10 million yuan, if calculated according to last year's output, mean that Zhang Yupeng had already sold out the entire year's output. In other words, the black beans used for oil pressing here had not yet been planted, and the oil that had not yet been pressed had already sold out. Now Zhang Yupeng was under great pressure. This year he shifted all of his focus to the production stage. At the same time, in order to ensure output, after some thought, Zhang Yupeng took a risk and planted a late-maturing variety:

Zhang Yupeng: Based on the meteorological data provided to us by the local meteorological department and the soil moisture data provided by the agriculture department, we conducted an analysis. This year's temperature is similar to previous years, but the low temperature rises relatively quickly, so if I plant the black beans, the germination rate can be guaranteed.

Reporter: If you did not have this data to support you, would you dare to plant?

Zhang Yupeng: I would not dare to plant. If the ground temperature is not high enough after planting, there will be no germination rate, and then the planting would be wasted.

Zhang Yupeng said that the reason he dared to be so crazy is that he adopted the "Internet Plus" agriculture model and relied on the analysis and use of Internet big data. So-called Internet big data refers to the massive amounts of data generated every day by the hundreds of millions of computers connected worldwide. In the past, due to technical limitations, it could not be analyzed and used. In recent years, with the birth of cloud computing technology, these massive data sets have been analyzed, classified, and organized, and their applications have become more and more widespread:

Zhang Yupeng: This is big data from e-commerce sales in recent years. You can very clearly see which products sell well. Then, through big data on consumer preference indexes and purchasing trends, we analyze these advantageous products and determine that black bean oil and ice wine are what we can do. We then use a data company to analyze the degree of consumer desire for these two products. The higher the degree of desire, the greater the success rate of online presales. In the end, we decided to use an e-commerce platform for online presales, and unexpectedly, it really succeeded.

So what is "Internet Plus"? The "Internet Plus" strategy is to use Internet platforms and information and communication technologies to combine all industries, including traditional industries, with the Internet, creating a new ecosystem in new fields. For example, traditional markets plus the Internet gave rise to Taobao, traditional banks plus the Internet gave rise to Alipay, traditional matchmakers plus the Internet gave rise to various dating websites, and traditional transportation plus the Internet gave rise to Kuaidi, Didi, and others. People like Zhang Yupeng who rely on Internet big data to do business are not isolated cases. According to Taobao data, more than 30% of agricultural product e-commerce businesses currently purchase back-end transaction data from Internet trading platforms for analysis and use. Duan Ping'an, general manager of an agricultural development company in Shanxi:

Duan Ping'an: In the past, many of our decisions were made based on experience and following our feelings. If agricultural big data is used to guide us, it will provide a scientific and accurate basis for production and operation decisions.

In Pinglu County, Shanxi Province, Duan Ping'an is busy selecting land to plant okra. He said that in the past, farming relied on experience, basically planting one crop year after year, and often lost money because of difficulties in selling. Now, using Internet big data, he can predict this year which crops may be in short supply next year, and thus adjust the planting plan in time:

Duan Ping'an: From national survey data on okra planting, in 2008 its demand was 58,900 tons and supply was 52,000 tons. By 2014, its demand had reached 106,600 tons, while its supply was 93,800 tons. Based on this projection, in the future market development of okra, its demand will far exceed supply.

By referring to Internet big data, Zhang Yupeng and Duan Ping'an adjusted the operating varieties of their online stores and their planting varieties in a timely manner. This not only pushed their online store sales past ten million yuan, but also more effectively helped farmers avoid the problem of difficulty in selling. Wang Anping, general manager of an agricultural technology company in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, admitted that he previously did not know what "Internet Plus agriculture" was either. When the company had just started, it basically did whatever was profitable, and Internet big data happened to satisfy this mentality:

Wang Anping: In 2011, we found that the search ranking for coix seed was very high, so we mainly promoted this product. Then in 2012, we found that the search ranking for black rice was high, so we made black rice. In 2013 and 2014, rice ranked high in searches.

As Internet data updates faster and faster, their cycle for adjusting products has also become shorter and shorter. With the company's development and deeper analysis of Internet data, they are no longer simply adjusting products. From initial product development, packaging design, and promotional publicity to sales and shipping, every link is inseparable from the analysis and use of Internet big data. In-depth data analysis has made every product launch by Wang Anping's company sought after by consumers. In just three years, it stood out on Internet trading platforms and created the miracle of an agricultural product online store achieving annual sales of more than 200 million yuan.