How much farther does rural informatization have to go?
The arrival of the mobile internet era lets city dwellers enjoy every convenience without leaving home. In rural areas with poor transportation, how can agricultural products be sold online? How can daily necessities be delivered to the doorstep? How can the urban-rural digital divide be narrowed?
Information benefits farmers——
⟦NL> Enter one door, handle many matters
The Yilong Information Cooperative, or village-level information service station, is the vehicle for the Ministry of Agriculture's pilot program of bringing information to villages and households. At present, China has built and put into operation nearly 4,000 Yilong Information Cooperatives
“Thanks to the Yilong Information Cooperative, we farmers can also receive goods at our doorstep just like city people.” Looking at the soybean oil delivered to his home by the information officer, Li Jinglu, a farmer from Baishi Village, Xun County, Henan Province, was full of emotion. “This Yilong Cooperative opened in the village before the New Year. It can pay mobile phone bills for us and also buy agricultural supplies and daily necessities online. I gave it a try and asked the information officer to order 1 barrel of oil for me, and I did not expect to receive the goods very soon.”
The things villagers buy online are first delivered to the Yilong Cooperative, and the information officer helps distribute them. Guo Zhonghua, a 40-year-old information officer at the Yilong Cooperative, explained that the cooperative mainly provides three major types of services: first, agricultural public welfare services such as policy, technology and market consulting; second, convenience services such as paying water, electricity and gas bills; third, agricultural product e-commerce, rural logistics agency services and so on. It is hard to imagine that such a Yilong Cooperative of just over 30 sq m helped surrounding villagers pay more than 30,000 yuan in just half a year, and placed online orders for more than 10,000 jin of seeds and more than 30 tons of chemical fertilizer.
“Hello experts, please help me see what disease the tea trees have?” Recently, at the Yilong Information Cooperative in Yaobu Village, Suichang County, Zhejiang, a farmer consulted agricultural technical experts about tea tree diseases through a free video call. Suichang is a small mountainous county with only 230,000 people, yet it is a nationally renowned “Taobao county,” and last year its agricultural product e-commerce transaction volume reached 530 million yuan. In Suichang, Jiayan Minsheng Affairs Co., Ltd. cooperated with local government departments to turn the village-level convenience service center into an upgraded version of the Yilong Cooperative; integrating the pilot program of bringing information to villages and households with the village-level convenience service center, expanding public welfare services and commercial services on the basis of the originally single government administrative service, and also adding new content of government services to the traditional Yilong Cooperative.
Leafing through the service record book of the Yilong Cooperative, the reporter noticed that some villagers came to get proof of being a lawful villager of the village, some filled out small loan applications, and some handled subsistence allowance matters. Yuan Jieyu, an information officer at the Yilong Cooperative in Yaobu Village, said that the cooperative's revenue comes from government purchases of services and commissions from commercial service providers, and farmers do not need to pay 1 extra fen. Ye Weijun, general manager of Jiayan Minsheng Company, said that the Yilong Cooperative can provide 138 government services from 25 government departments and 52 market services from more than 60 enterprises for free, and the company recruits professional staff in the village and conducts standardized management of them.
The Yilong Information Cooperative, or village-level information service station, is the vehicle for the Ministry of Agriculture's pilot program of bringing information to villages and households. Last year, the Ministry of Agriculture built a group of village-level information service stations in 22 pilot counties across the country according to the standards of having a site, personnel, equipment, broadband, a webpage and sustainable operating capacity. Each pilot county, according to the requirement of covering all administrative villages and building at least 1 Yilong Information Cooperative in each administrative village, built three types of Yilong Information Cooperatives - standard, simple and professional - at locations such as village committees, supermarkets and cooperatives. According to the requirements, no matter which type of Yilong Cooperative it is, it must meet the “six haves” standard and promote the access of various agricultural public welfare services, convenience services and e-commerce and other resources to village-level stations.
At present, China has built and put into operation nearly 4,000 Yilong Information Cooperatives. It is understood that the Ministry of Agriculture plans to newly arrange about 10 pilot provinces this year, cover all provinces next year, and strive to basically cover all counties and administrative villages by 2020.
E-commerce going downward——
Agricultural products going upward, consumer goods going downward
For a long time, because rural online shopping volume was not large and farming households lived scattered, e-commerce logistics often only delivered to the county, and the “last kilometer” problem from county to village was difficult to solve
Since last year, Alibaba, JD.com and other e-commerce companies have respectively implemented the “thousand counties, ten thousand villages” and “channel sinking” strategies. Agricultural departments have also carried out the work of bringing information to villages and households. Many enterprises regard rural areas as a “blue ocean” and are willing to use the platform of bringing information to villages and households to open up the rural market. By bringing Yilong Information Cooperatives into villages and encouraging e-commerce enterprise service stations to sink downward, all localities focus on exploring a feasible path for rural informatization.
“We have done calculations. If an operator sets up points in rural areas or townships, a single store needs an investment of 100,000 yuan. When we set up points, we rely on existing resources or channels and look for agricultural supply stores, supermarkets and so on that can cooperate, with an average cost of only 10,000 to 15,000 yuan.” Sun Weimin, general manager of Zhejiang Public Information Company, which undertakes the pilot work of bringing information to villages and households, said that after the platform is set up, telecom operators, platform e-commerce companies and others interested in opening up the rural market are all willing to cooperate with the Yilong Cooperative and pay a certain proportion of rebates according to sales. “In this way, without relying on government investment, enterprises open up the market, farmers get real benefits, and multiple parties win together.”
Unlike Jiayan Minsheng, which broke through from rural public services, a rural e-commerce company called “Ganjie” directly made its move from online shopping. Consumers in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai only need to place an order through Ganjie.com and can receive fresh local products the next day. Farming households can also obtain the convenience of online shopping through rural service stations. At the Ganjie service station in Kengkou Village, Suichang County, when the reporter met Li Xue, she was busy comparing prices for villagers who came to buy clothes and helping them place orders. On the white wall next to the computer hung a photo of her with Ma Yun during his inspection last year. This rural woman, who previously stayed at home taking care of children and running a small supermarket, gained an unprecedented sense of achievement. “Most of the things bought are agricultural supplies, clothing and stationery. I help buyers choose online and make payments, and when the goods arrive everyone pays me directly in cash. I do not earn money from the villagers; according to transaction volume, the e-commerce platform gives me a commission, and I have an income of more than 1,000 yuan a month.”
Where does the operating capacity of village-level information stations come from? Of course it cannot rely only on fiscal project funds. Zhang Hecheng, director of the Market Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that while ensuring the online availability of service resources from various agriculture-related departments such as policies, technology and market conditions, it is necessary to actively introduce service resources from telecommunications, finance, water and electricity public utility units and related enterprises, which not only innovates the way government departments provide public services, but also creates good conditions for related enterprises to expand the rural market.
“As long as it meets the standards and is willing to operate on the unified platform for bringing information to villages and households, no matter who built the village-level information service station, it can hang the sign of Yilong Information Cooperative after being recognized by the provincial agricultural department.” Zhang Hecheng said that only when the number of Yilong Information Cooperatives increases to a certain level can operating costs be reduced, scale effects be brought into play, and more enterprises be attracted. The purpose of currently promoting the whole-county pilot is to form scale within the county area as soon as possible.
Digital countryside——
Three in one, precise information delivery
It is necessary to focus on agricultural products and agricultural means of production, do a good job in the pilot, and organize specialized large households, farmers' cooperatives and other new business entities to connect with e-commerce platforms
At present, there is still a relatively large “digital divide” between China's urban and rural areas. More than 50,000 administrative villages across the country 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 e-commerce operating revenue of agricultural products exceeded 100 billion yuan, about 3% of the total sales of agricultural products, about 7 percentage points lower than the proportion of online retail sales of consumer goods in society.
Li Daoliang, a professor at the College of Information and Electrical Engineering of China Agricultural University, said that one of the core values of rural e-commerce is to continuously transform agricultural production through customer data and market analysis. Therefore, while formulating rural e-commerce plans, relevant departments need even more to use the concept of “Internet Plus” to simultaneously implement changes including agricultural production, regulatory concepts, marketing methods and so on. “While bringing information to villages and households, promote the deep integration of the innovative achievements of the internet with agricultural production, operation, management and services. If these do not keep up, then the so-called rural e-commercialization will ultimately stop at the surface.”
Pan Dongming, founder of Ganjie.com, believes that the key to the success of rural informatization is to build a three-in-one promotion mechanism of “government, service providers and operators,” and explore and establish a sustainable development mechanism in which the government “builds roads,” enterprises “run cars,” and farmers “receive goods.” The government is responsible for integrating public welfare resources, providing public welfare services, and coordinating the building of the basic information highway; operators are responsible for the construction and specific operation of village-level information stations; service providers, including telecom operators, life service providers, platform e-commerce companies, financial service providers and so on, are responsible for providing various commercial services and channels, and obtain returns by expanding market scale.
“Only when e-commerce is done well can bringing information to villages and households be sustainable. In promoting agricultural e-commerce, we must have an open and inclusive attitude. As long as it is beneficial to farmers, we all welcome it. It is necessary to focus on agricultural products and agricultural means of production, do a good job in the pilot, and organize specialized large households, farmers' cooperatives and other new business entities to connect with e-commerce platforms, not only selling the village's high-quality agricultural products but also letting farmers buy high-quality and low-priced means of production and daily necessities.” Chen Xiaohua, Vice Minister of Agriculture, said that through bringing information to villages and households, the country will ultimately connect 600,000 administrative villages across the country into one large network, form agricultural big data, improve the government's decision-making capacity and level, and precisely push information to farming households and new agricultural business entities.