E-commerce Helps Farmers Increase Income and Prosper
On March 25, the Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) held a monthly consultative symposium on "Rural E-commerce Development," and for the first time carried out a live online text-and-photo broadcast. Attending experts, scholars and entrepreneur representatives actively offered suggestions centered on promoting rural e-commerce development, letting rural areas come alive through e-commerce, and letting farmers get rich through e-commerce.
Qi Zhifeng, a member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial CPPCC, said, "In view of the current state of agriculture in Shaanxi Province, the characteristics of agricultural and sideline products, and the specific situation of e-commerce development, only by building a platform led by the government, with the coordinated participation of industry associations, and with enterprises undertaking market operations as well as e-commerce training services, technical services, activity services, online platform exchange services and other functions, and by gradually achieving large-scale, standardized and branded production of agricultural products, can the province's agricultural industrialization process be advanced." He also suggested reducing risks by establishing a unified provincial agricultural information and sales network. Wang Fayou, a member of the Provincial CPPCC, suggested optimizing logistics distribution and building and improving a modern logistics distribution system; strengthening e-commerce education and training for rural residents; and improving relevant national laws to strengthen supervision of rural e-commerce activities.
"Rural e-commerce in Shaanxi Province should give play to its latecomer advantage and jointly tackle key problems by combining the strength of five aspects: government, industry, schools, research and users," suggested Li Qi, director of the E-commerce Expert Committee of the China Information Economics Society. Chen Liqiang, chairman of Li'an Group, speaking as a representative of e-commerce enterprises, believed that starting from the concept of sustainable development, Shaanxi should build its own rural e-commerce platform, and at the same time optimize the allocation of resources between its own rural e-commerce platform and chain supermarkets willing to "go to the countryside." Wei Yan'an, advisor to the Rural E-commerce Committee of the Shaanxi E-commerce Association and director of the Rural Work Department of the Provincial Youth League Committee, said that in order to effectively advance rural e-commerce development, in 2015 the Provincial Youth League Committee will join forces with the Provincial Department of Agriculture, the Provincial Department of Commerce, the Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office and several other departments to launch the "Ten Thousand Villages, Ten Thousand People" youth e-commerce talent training program, striving to use three years to provide specialized rural e-commerce training to 10,000 young people across the province, covering 10,000 villages.