Agricultural Crowdfunding Project Ideas Boost Brand Agriculture Development

As a branch of internet finance whose popularity is soaring, crowdfunding is no longer unfamiliar to many people, but adopting the crowdfunding approach in the most traditional agricultural sector is still something new. Using online means to mobilize the power of the public to promote investment, entrepreneurship, public welfare and more in the “three rural” issues has already become a trend and a fashion, and its role in enhancing brand influence is also significant. Although agricultural crowdfunding is still at the trial stage, from a long-term perspective, its room for development is huge. ——Editor

In February of this year, the “Love Fixed on the Countryside 2015 My Rural Dream Public Welfare Crowdfunding Campaign” was launched. The campaign openly solicited excellent public welfare crowdfunding projects from across the country, leveraged the advantages of online and offline integration, and explored the path of rural public welfare in the internet age. Today, more and more local governments, industry associations, institutions and individuals are beginning to apply the concept of crowdfunding to the development of the “three rural” cause. In Shanxi, Shandong, Hubei, Anhui, Shaanxi and other places, practices of agricultural crowdfunding are emerging one after another. Using online means to mobilize the power of the public to promote investment, entrepreneurship, public welfare and more in the “three rural” issues has already become a trend and a fashion, and its role in enhancing brand influence is also significant. Although agricultural crowdfunding is still at the trial stage, from a long-term perspective, its room for development is huge.

Why is “agricultural crowdfunding” so popular?

⟦NL> The greatest benefit of agriculture joining hands with crowdfunding is that it can obtain supporting services across the entire process from creativity to market development. At the same time, makers have startup funds and their first batch of customers, and can also absorb everyone's wisdom, making the success rate of entrepreneurship higher.

As a branch of internet finance whose popularity is soaring, crowdfunding is no longer unfamiliar to many people, but adopting the crowdfunding approach in the most traditional agricultural sector is still something new. So-called crowdfunding is an act of raising funds from the public to support an individual or organization that initiates it. It is composed of initiators, backers and a platform, and generally connects sponsors and proposers through an online platform. It has the characteristics of a low threshold, diversity, reliance on the power of the public, and emphasis on creativity.

Agricultural crowdfunding originated in the United States, mainly using the internet and social networks to innovate the original agricultural production process. The relatively well-known agricultural crowdfunding websites in the United States are Fquare and Agfunder. Fquare openly declares itself to be a platform for land transfer, while Agfunder is similar to crowdfunding websites such as Demohour and Zhongchouwang, except that its projects are concentrated in the agricultural field.

In 2014, driven by internet finance, China's agricultural crowdfunding welcomed its first group of people to eat crabs. The agricultural crowdfunding platform “Changxian Crowdfunding” went online, filling the gap in domestic professional crowdfunding platforms in the vertical agricultural field; the “Dajiazhong” agricultural crowdfunding website positioned as F2F (FamilytoFarm) went online; the rural tourism and leisure crowdfunding platform “Xiangchouwang” went online; Shandong Province's first agricultural crowdfunding platform “Youji Youli” went online……

Li Yumin, partner and general manager of Zhongchouwang, said that the greatest benefit of agriculture joining hands with crowdfunding is that it can obtain supporting services across the entire process from creativity to market development. He believes that there is an essential difference between agricultural crowdfunding and fresh food e-commerce. E-commerce simply takes ready-made products and sells them online, while agricultural crowdfunding already has a complete creative concept before the product is formed. This model contains more content and optional products, provides users with personalized customized services, and is a powerful means of new agricultural innovation.

Wei Yan'an, director of the Agriculture and Industry Department of the Communist Youth League Shaanxi Provincial Committee, believes that agricultural crowdfunding, as a new thing, has brought highlights to agriculture. It can realize production on demand, solve problems such as food safety, information asymmetry, and asymmetry between production and sales, and can also solve the problems of overly complex circulation and too many links, reduce costs, and increase farmers' income.

At the same time, some makers with strong innovative and entrepreneurial ideas who are determined to devote themselves to the development of the “three rural” issues have found opportunities through crowdfunding platforms to realize their dreams. With startup funds and their first batch of customers, they can also absorb everyone's wisdom, making the success rate of entrepreneurship higher.

Zheng Fengtian, a professor at the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at Renmin University of China, wrote in an article that two major tides are driving the formation and development of “agricultural crowdfunding”: nature and safety. Agriculture is an inevitable activity for humankind to understand and transform nature, and engaging in agriculture is human nature. On the other hand, paying attention to and engaging in agriculture has also been put on the agenda by many urbanites with money and time. Quite a few urban residents rent land in the suburbs, which has become a newly emerging sight in China.

What does agricultural crowdfunding raise?

Raising products, raising technology, raising public welfare, raising land, raising farms, raising equity, raising rural tourism……as long as you can think of it.

Are we crowdfunding land, agricultural and livestock products, or visits and picking? This should be done around the personalized characteristics of the region and the farm. You can raise products, raise technology, raise public welfare, raise land, raise farms, raise equity, raise rural tourism, and so on, as long as you can think of it.

At present, the most common agricultural crowdfunding model in China is crowdfunding of agricultural products and “production determined by sales.” The farm, as the initiator of the project, launches a project on a crowdfunding platform, raises funds, and carries out planting and management according to demand. After the agricultural products mature, they are delivered directly to users. For example, among the agricultural crowdfunding projects that have currently appeared in Hubei, there is a basic model: the initiator invests crowdfunded funds, farmers produce crops, and fresh, green agricultural products are delivered directly to the funders.

This kind of crowdfunding is at the primary stage. In fact, agricultural crowdfunding can occur in every link of the entire agricultural chain. Agricultural crowdfunding can also raise technology. Agfunder cuts in from the point of agricultural technology, giving us many references and imagination, and can be a direction of development.

The sudden emergence of crowdfunded land projects such as “Jutudi” and “Gengdibao” produced a “catfish” effect in the industry. Yu Xuebing, chairman and president of Lianzhong Leisure Industry Group Co., Ltd., believes that a couple running their own farm in a beautiful countryside is itself a beautiful story, and green organic food is even more something urbanites dream of. If investors are also given economic benefits and social public welfare benefits, that is enough to move investors.

There is also rural tourism. For example, Banshan Village in Fushan Township, Zhejiang Province, and Linhai Huatian Rural Leisure Resort in Yinan County, Shandong Province, both recently built leisure tourism projects through crowdfunding. Urbanites long for rural life and long for peace of mind. If an urbanite can spend very little money to participate in running an original ecological homestay, a resort hotel with a rural flavor, or even an ordinary farmhouse restaurant, it would make many urbanites extremely envious. The return can be set as the number of days of accommodation in the hotel each year plus profit dividends. And the investor's social network in turn brings customer sources to the hotel, forming a virtuous cycle.

Public welfare crowdfunding actually has greater demand in agriculture. Many public welfare undertakings in rural areas are increasingly recognized and participated in by society. Rural libraries, rural school facilities, rural environmental protection facilities and activities, and so on, as long as they are given a mission, can all be used for crowdfunding. For example, in October last year, Cheng Wanjun, deputy county magistrate of Yonghe County, Shanxi Province, launched the social public welfare project “Crowdfund Yonghe Walnuts to Fulfill Children's Dream of a Reading Room” on Zhongchouwang, raising a total of 860,000 yuan, which not only helped Yonghe farmers sell walnuts, but also fulfilled the reading room dream of children in urban kindergartens.

Agricultural crowdfunding can also be equity-based. For example, during the Dragon Boat Festival, crowdfund a zongzi brand, pool everyone's funds and then return equity, with endless tricks and hype.