From Farm to Table: How to Fix the Weak Links in Agricultural Product Logistics
Jilin Province promotes agricultural products into the cities and onto tables, and agricultural supplies down to the countryside and into households——
Logistics “dual channels” satisfy urban residents and earn farmers' praise
“Since the green channel for agricultural products was implemented, our cooperative has saved more than 30,000 yuan a year in toll fees on rice shipped out, all thanks to the good policies of the state and the province.” said Tong Zhanhui, a large-scale rice grower in Jilin City, Jilin Province. Within the network of the “green channel” for transporting fresh agricultural products as stipulated by the state, the policy of exempting vehicle tolls for vehicles legally loaded with full cargos of fresh agricultural products is truly effective, allowing our agricultural products to be produced and shipped out, and the key is that it saves a great deal of cost.
Urban direct-sale meat and vegetable stores connect with production areas at “zero distance”
In Jilin Province, agricultural products enter direct-sale stores in the cities in large quantities through fast logistics methods, and are quickly placed on residents' dining tables. As a pilot city for the comprehensive modern circulation of agricultural products organized by the Ministry of Commerce, Jilin City had 57 direct-sale meat and vegetable stores operating under signs in various urban districts as early as January 2013. Through building an agricultural product circulation system of source procurement, logistics distribution and terminal direct sales, this approach innovated the agricultural product circulation model of Jilin Province, achieved affordable, high-quality and beneficial agricultural products, ensured the supply of the “vegetable basket” and safeguarded food safety.
“Our direct-sale meat and vegetable stores all adopt unified procurement, unified distribution, unified facilities, unified testing and unified management. Our wholesale market directly connects with production areas to realize contract farming, reduce intermediate links, greatly lower procurement prices and ensure a complete range of varieties and stable prices; the wholesale market uniformly distributes vegetables to each store, reducing the logistics costs of secondary in-city transfer of vegetables, while also reducing the loss of profits to intermediate links in the vegetable circulation process and lowering operators' logistics costs.” said Manager Zhao of the Northeast Asia Agricultural Products Wholesale Market in Jilin City, which is responsible for this distribution work. Through a unified storefront image, we have built our brand's terminal sales network for meat and vegetables; for the vegetables and meat distributed, the market cooperates with relevant government departments to conduct unified testing, and only qualified vegetables and meat may be sold. At present, Jilin City has more than 150 direct-sale meat and vegetable stores.
In the direct-sale meat and vegetable store in the Jiangnan residential community of Jilin City, resident Zhang Shufen said: “The vegetables here are cheaper than those sold outside, each jin is at least 2 mao cheaper, and safety is guaranteed.” Uncle Chai, who was buying meat, said: “The direct-sale meat and vegetable store has a full range of varieties, is cheap and has quality guarantees. We are especially satisfied with this good deed the government has done for us residents.”
The Yanji Wanyuan Agricultural and Sideline Products Wholesale Market in Jilin Province began trial operation last April. It filled the gap of a large agricultural and sideline products wholesale market in Yanbian Prefecture, and can not only save logistics costs, realize the northbound sale of southern goods, the southbound shipment of northern goods and direct sales from production areas, but also stabilize prices, improving the current situation of “farmers finding it hard to sell vegetables and urban residents finding vegetables expensive to buy.”
“Reverse logistics” lets farmers buy all agricultural supplies in a “one-stop” way
In early April this year, in the eastern part of Jilin Province, as tanker trucks supporting agriculture drove into the vast rural areas of Antu County, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province, Jilin Province's activity of delivering agricultural supplies to the countryside, into villages and into households reached a climax.
In recent years, the Agriculture Committee of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province, together with the Jilin Yanbian Sales Branch of PetroChina, launched the work of “delivering fuel to the countryside.” This year's activity expanded from mainly agricultural diesel to lubricants, tires, seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and other means of production and daily necessities, making it convenient for farmers to buy everything in a “one-stop” way. At present, the entire prefecture has opened 45 fuel delivery routes to the countryside, which can provide services to farming households in 244 villages and settlements.
In the central part of the Songnen Plain in Jilin Province, Gongzhuling City also carried out publicity week activities in various townships under the theme of “trustworthy agricultural supplies to the countryside and into villages, safeguarding agricultural product safety,” setting up agricultural supply consultation desks and planting technology consultation desks in various townships. Zhang Dongfa, a farmer from Heilinzi Town, said: “Every year from spring to winter, agricultural science and technology personnel bring science and technology to the countryside, bring agricultural supplies to the countryside and teach technology in households, bringing us tangible benefits, and we give them a thumbs-up from the bottom of our hearts!”
E-commerce brings agricultural product logistics into the “net” era
Jilin Province Agricultural Comprehensive Information Service Co., Ltd. is a demonstration enterprise for agricultural e-commerce. The “Haohuigou Jilin Province Agricultural E-commerce Trading Platform” created by the company, after four years of operation, has now built 2,000 village-level comprehensive information service stations integrating information services and e-commerce within the scope of all 41 counties (cities) in the province, benefiting 2.4 million farming households across the province and achieving a transaction volume of 150 million yuan.
The platform's business mainly includes two parts: downward e-commerce——agricultural supplies, daily necessities and medicines to the countryside; upward e-commerce——agricultural products into the cities. Its purpose is to enable farmers, without leaving their villages, to buy trustworthy agricultural supplies, high-quality food and daily necessities with a click of the mouse. Products include more than 300 products in 7 major categories, including fertilizers, seeds, pesticides, agricultural machinery, feed and agricultural film. All these products are strictly reviewed and checked by the relevant departments of the Provincial Agriculture Committee; in particular, products such as fertilizers and seeds are mostly operated using platform-exclusive packaging, exclusive varieties and professional logistics methods.
As of the end of 2014, the platform had 2,579 agricultural product enterprises online, and the products online gathered high-quality, distinctive, safe and green agricultural products from 60 counties (cities and districts) in 9 cities (prefectures) across the province, covering six major categories including grain and oil, food, vegetables and fruits, meat, eggs and milk, beverages and specialty products. In order to broaden the platform's sales channels and create a model of coordinated online and offline development, they also successfully held activities such as the “Jilin Province High-Quality Agricultural Products Exhibition and Sales Week” carried out simultaneously online and offline, during which product sales were booming and won unanimous praise from urban residents.
In order to achieve the goal put forward by Jilin Province that “good products should sell for good prices,” the platform cooperated with Taobao to build the “Jilin Province Taobao Specialty China · Jilin Pavilion.” The pavilion officially went online last September. Products online include more than 600 categories such as the Northeast Three Treasures, rice and miscellaneous grains, delicious fresh goods and tourism handicrafts, covering 15,000 items such as Changbai Mountain ginseng and Changbai Mountain pine nuts. As of March this year, the number of enterprises online in the Jilin Pavilion had increased to 730, with more than 30,000 products online and a transaction volume of 160 million yuan.
Tianjin's agricultural product circulation sees a “clash of old and new”——
E-commerce platforms “rise” while veteran agricultural enterprises “come alive”
In recent years, with the pilot project of building agricultural IoT zones and the three-year e-commerce action plan, Tianjin's agricultural product logistics construction has gained strong momentum, and the development of e-commerce has brought changes to Tianjin's agricultural product circulation model.
Not long ago, Tianjin launched the second “Online-Agriculture Matchmaking” and “Yidu Mall” Beautiful Countryside Youth Micro-E-commerce Entrepreneurship Competition. A group of newly emerging outstanding agricultural product e-commerce players rose rapidly, carrying the banner of agricultural product circulation reform; while traditional agricultural enterprises, facing the pressure of “either burst out in silence or die in silence,” began to change their thinking and transform, driving the traditional agricultural product circulation model onto a more diversified development path.
For this reason, the reporter selected two enterprises, one new and one old: one is “Shiguanjia,” which started from an e-commerce platform, and the other is Tianjin Jizhou Green Food Group Co., Ltd. In this “clash of old and new,” we see how traditional and modern agricultural product circulation models collide and how they blend.