China Agricultural Products Big Data Alliance Established to Boost Agricultural Product Circulation
On October 29, the “China Agricultural Products Big Data Alliance” was established. Reporters learned at the meeting that transactions guided and influenced by “agricultural product big data” will expand from the current 400 million yuan per day to 4 billion yuan in two years. Xu Shiwei, director of the Agricultural Information Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, believes that for agricultural transactions in the information age, the “big data” rule helps to deeply mine and effectively integrate agricultural product production and circulation data scattered in various places, and is an important national strategic need.
Reporters learned from the Ministry of Agriculture that in the next stage of informatization work, the Ministry of Agriculture will focus on advancing the open sharing of information resources, promoting innovative applications of agricultural information resources, and fully tapping the value of data.
Informatization Will Become the Commanding Height of Modern Agriculture
Within one year, more than 50 billion yuan worth of agricultural products were circulated through more than 40,000 agriculture-related websites.
At the 2014 Agricultural Informatization Summit Forum held recently, Vice Minister of Agriculture Chen Xiaohua said that informatization plays an important pulling and driving role in accelerating the transformation of agricultural development methods and building modern agriculture, and is the commanding height of modern agriculture.
It is understood that China will further advance the informatization of agricultural operations, including encouraging the development of agricultural product e-commerce, focusing on supporting core engineering projects such as exploring business model upgrades and supporting informatization construction at wholesale markets in advantageous agricultural product producing areas, and efficient docking between farmers' professional cooperatives (or cooperative unions) and markets. The aim is to accelerate the development of new circulation formats, improve the efficiency and benefits of agricultural product circulation, and enhance agricultural competitiveness through informatization transformation of agricultural operation entities and operation methods.
“The state has focused on agricultural development in its No. 1 Document for eleven consecutive years, and now the agricultural economy is facing profound changes, so it is necessary to speed up the modern replacement of agricultural production and operation factors,” Xu Shiwei told reporters. “How to develop agricultural informatization is an important research direction for industry and academia.”
Reporters learned from the Ministry of Agriculture that the key directions of the Ministry of Agriculture's informatization work in the next stage are to accelerate the coverage of informatization into villages, advance the open sharing of information resources, promote innovative applications of agricultural information resources, and fully tap the value of data.
At the founding conference of the “China Agricultural Products Big Data Alliance,” experts attending the meeting said that vigorously developing agricultural e-commerce requires forming a model that combines online and offline, with agricultural products going to the cities and agricultural production materials and rural consumer goods flowing to the countryside in a two-way flow.
Agricultural “Big Data” Promotes Large-Scale Circulation of Agricultural Products
“Online information is vast, complex and repetitive, and identifying effective information requires effort and cost,” an expert attending the founding conference of the “China Agricultural Products Big Data Alliance” told reporters. “The integration of ‘big data’ from multiple aspects such as producing areas, buyers, channels and logistics helps to provide more effective guidance for agricultural product transaction information.”
In fact, in the chaotic battlefield of agricultural product e-commerce, where more than 50 billion yuan worth of agricultural products flow, the “big data” integration of effective information such as producing areas, sellers and channels has become increasingly sought after.
“If we want to know where Zhangjiakou's potatoes are sold, or where Beijing's cucumbers come from, can we use ‘big data’ to quickly generate a daily real-time agricultural product circulation plan?” Deng Jinhong, president of Beijing Yirenyimutian Network Technology Co., Ltd., told reporters. “The importance of this question lies in sellers understanding demand and buyers understanding supply, so everyone has a clear idea of how big the pie is, and then it can provide a basis for decision-making for agricultural product producers, agricultural product brokers, and agricultural system management departments at all levels.”
“International capital no longer seeks cheap labor around the world as it did in the past, but instead seeks individualized markets and consumers' fragmented demand for products,” Zhang Yansheng, secretary-general of the Academic Committee of the National Development and Reform Commission, said earlier. “Therefore, to solve the long-standing problem of difficulty in buying and selling agricultural products, we must also adapt to this new change and use big data and big networks to establish a large platform for agricultural product circulation adapted to new technologies.”
Deng Jinhong believes that agricultural “big data” helps carry out agricultural product monitoring and early warning. By deeply mining and effectively integrating agricultural product production and circulation data scattered across agricultural producing areas nationwide, conducting professional analysis and interpretation, and providing efficient and high-quality information services for agricultural product production and circulation, it can improve the utilization rate of agricultural resources and circulation efficiency, ensure food safety, facilitate farmers, and promote the development of China's agricultural industry.