How should local direct agricultural sales be developed appropriately?
A survey on the state of livelihood development and the main livelihood demands in our country shows that food safety is the area with the lowest satisfaction among urban residents. Out of concern about food safety conditions, many urban residents are willing to buy food directly from producers; they care about the food production process and food safety conditions. Against this backdrop, direct agricultural sales in our country have begun to show momentum for development.
At present, consumers' purchases of direct-sale agricultural products still mainly rely on farmers' markets, with fresh vegetables and fruits as the mainstay. In addition, urban residents also obtain what they consider relatively "reliable" safe food through various new forms. In some large cities, many new forms keep emerging, such as consumer clubs and weekend farms. Starting in 2013, more and more Beijing residents began ordering vegetables the way they order milk, directly from farms on the outskirts of Beijing, with farmers practicing intensive cultivation, producing and selling their own goods, and handling delivery themselves. Some regions have set up direct agricultural product stores in cities. In some large cities, due to strong consumer demand and active promotion by people in society concerned about food safety, markets have appeared where farmers sell their own "organic vegetables" and "trusted vegetables," such as the Zhejiang Natural Farmers Market and the Beijing Organic Farmers Market. Direct agricultural sales aimed at urban residents have begun to show their appeal.
Direct agricultural sales, that is, farmers producing and selling their own goods, are regarded by some people as a backward mode of production and operation. Then, in today's era when we are vigorously developing modern agriculture, why has a new trend of direct agricultural sales still emerged? Is it a fleeting phenomenon or will it continue to develop? By analyzing the development of direct agricultural sales abroad, we can draw some insights.
In the United States, the direct market venue for agricultural products is called a "farmers market," and it is called the "flagship fleet" of direct agricultural sales. In the 1940s, American farmers markets showed signs of decline and even nearly died out alongside the development of the long-distance transport industry and the rise of supermarket retail. In the 1970s, direct agricultural sales, mainly in the form of farmers markets, began to revive. Although the United States worked hard in the 20th century to advance large-scale production in agricultural modernization, many small farms still existed widely. Some small farms could not adapt to large-scale marketing channels and were pushed out of the market; these small farms went bankrupt one after another in the 1960s and 1970s, but some small farms near the urban outskirts survived. The important marketing channel they relied on was direct agricultural sales aimed at urban residents. Against this background, although direct sales still accounted for a very small proportion of sales channels, their rapid development and broad popularity over half a century are indisputable facts. The U.S. Department of Agriculture opened a "USDA Farmers Market" in its headquarters parking lot, loudly proclaiming its support for and encouragement of farmers markets.
The farmers market in the United Kingdom can be said to be the result of the combined action of international social forces, the government, and civil society. After the 1992 "United Nations Conference on Environment and Development," the UK Local Agenda 21 committee listened to issues of concern to the public. In view of consumers' "emphasis on the quality of agricultural products and concern about the negative environmental consequences caused by highly intensive production with heavy use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides," and based on the fact that farmers markets "do not encourage large-scale highly intensive production and reduce the energy and resource consumption brought by long-distance transport and packaging," after farmers markets had disappeared in the United Kingdom for many years, the United Kingdom established its first farmers market in September 1997. This can be said to be the result of the concrete implementation in the United Kingdom of the principles of the "UK Local Agenda 21" and sustainable development.
The return of direct agricultural sales, which began in the 1970s, once aroused widespread controversy. Some people believed that returning to direct sales was a sign of regression, because direct sales are "inefficient." But the fact is that direct agricultural sales grew vigorously amid a chorus of pessimism at the time. Farmers markets in Canada started almost at the same time as those in the United States. Countries such as the United Kingdom chased after them, and Australia and New Zealand followed suit one after another. The return of the direct sales phenomenon in these countries with highly developed agriculture deserves our deep reflection. The logic of efficiency encounters difficulties in explaining this phenomenon, and a new logic must be used to explain it. This logic is the "logic of quality" and the "logic of green consumption concepts" that conform to consumer demand. Direct agricultural market sales invisibly carry the concept of sustainable agricultural development, and at the same time corroborate that small-scale production and the existence of small farmers have a certain rationality.
The situation we currently face is quite similar to that of the above countries: consumers worried about food safety, small-scale agricultural production that may exist for a long time, urgent demands for environmental protection, the emergence of the concept of sustainable development, and nostalgia for the tradition of production under natural methods. Moreover, due to the existence of middlemen, the problems of "buying expensive" and "selling with difficulty" also urgently need to be solved. It can be predicted that although direct agricultural sales have just emerged, they are very likely not a fleeting phenomenon but have broad room for growth.
Under these circumstances, the farmers market, the most widespread venue for direct agricultural sales in our country, should also have a new orientation for its development. At present, the existence of farmers markets in cities often faces a rather awkward situation because they "affect the city's appearance." Managers should see the strong consumer demand behind direct agricultural sales. Urban farmers markets (especially open-air markets) not only provide consumers with agricultural products; the unique space they provide for urban consumers' shopping experience is also something large supermarkets cannot provide. Managers should strengthen the construction of self-production and self-sales areas and adjust the management and development of farmers markets under new thinking and new approaches.
Some people have doubts, believing that self-produced and self-sold products cannot be taken for granted as "safe food." Self-produced and self-sold vegetables build consumers' trust in the products mainly because of their local attributes and good product traceability; traditional forms of production and sales can bring consumers a sense of security. The government should take measures to ensure the truly safe nature of self-produced and self-sold products.
In our country, due to various reasons such as the human-to-land ratio, even with vigorous promotion of urbanization and agricultural modernization, small-scale production and operation in our country's agricultural production will still exist in some areas. In the past, in the context of agricultural modernization, "smallholder production" carried a negative image, with no hope or future. Facing the current food safety problems, traditional smallholder production has gained new value. It can encourage smallholders on the urban outskirts to adopt agricultural product marketing strategies that appeal to quality differentiation, enabling smallholders around cities to produce with new approaches.