Agricultural information services reach villages and households, opening up the rural road of service to farming households
Build village-level stations well, open up the “rural road” of information services
“In less than half a month since the information cooperative was established, it helped villagers buy 1 washing machine and 1 television online. The stainless steel mop bought online does not dirty your hands. After villagers saw it, they liked it very much, and 3 have already been sold.” On September 21, Bian Xiaofeng, information officer of the Yinong Information Cooperative of Biancang Residents' Committee, Biancang Town, Tinghu District, Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, told reporters about the tangible convenience that bringing information into villages and households has brought to villagers.
This year, the Ministry of Agriculture selected 10 provinces and 22 counties nationwide to carry out pilot projects for bringing information into villages and households, building an information service system that integrates the 12316 hotline service, agricultural product e-commerce business, online shopping, convenience services, rural social management, and production technology promotion and application through the construction of village-level information stations. As of the end of August, pilot areas had established 125 village-level information service stations.
If platform construction at the national level with power and communications enterprises, online e-commerce companies, and public welfare hotlines is the “expressway” leading to informatization, then the construction of village-level information stations is like the “rural paths” leading to thousands of households. To open up these “rural paths,” it is necessary to base efforts on farmers' needs, introduce market mechanisms in organization, mobilization, and implementation of measures, strive for innovation in the content and forms of services for bringing information into villages and households, and strive for innovation in the market-oriented operation of village-level information service stations.
Sink the “roots” of information services into the countryside
According to the Ministry of Agriculture's pilot work plan for bringing information into villages and households, within the pilot county areas, village-level information service stations will cover all administrative villages.
Where the funding comes from is a practical problem encountered in building stations. Yixing City, Jiangsu Province, adopted multiple channels and forms to increase investment through “municipal fiscal subsidies, enterprise support, and village committee supplementation.” The municipal party committee and municipal government approved including this cost in a special municipal fiscal fund, Jiangsu Zhuoyi Company provided free technical support to develop the software platform, and the village committee covered the shortfall, thereby promoting the formation of an investment and construction pattern of “diversified input and mutual benefit and win-win.”
Where the service station is located and who serves as the village-level information officer directly affects the service results. “When township cadres heard that computers would be provided free of charge, most of the sites selected the first time were connected to township cadres, or were village party secretaries, village heads, accountants, and so on. When we went down to investigate, we found that most did not meet the conditions for building stations.” said Li Jingyou, deputy director of the Xun County Agriculture Bureau in Henan Province. They repeatedly held meetings to emphasize station-building standards. After townships selected sites, the agriculture bureau and Nongxintong Group went to the sites to check them on the ground, ensuring the feasibility of the selected sites. Jiangsu Province focused on selecting village comprehensive service centers and village agricultural science and technology service stations, agricultural input stores, rural supermarkets, agricultural professional cooperative organizations, and agriculture-related enterprises with relatively good basic conditions and enthusiasm for serving farmers to build stations; from village and group cadres, college student village officials, rural brokers, leaders of agricultural production and operation entities, and key members of rural supermarkets, village-level information officers were selected and appointed.
Many pilot cities and counties are working hard to explore how to better integrate service resources. Donggang City, Liaoning Province, added the plaque “Rural Comprehensive Information Service Station” to all agricultural service centers of townships and subdistrict offices, moved the 12316 Jinnong hotline seats into agricultural service centers and relatively well-developed cooperatives, and achieved effective integration of the two systems of agricultural technology promotion and agricultural information in townships. Jinhu County, Jiangsu Province, introduced market forces: China Telecom Jinhu Branch extended value-added services down to village-level stations, realizing value-added services such as recharge for the “three networks” of Telecom, Mobile, and Unicom and over-the-counter sales of mobile terminals; JD.com's Jiangsu agent - Nanjing Branch Channel Business Service Co., Ltd. guided village-level stations to carry out online express purchasing agency and rural logistics agency services based on JD.com's e-commerce platform.
These efforts and explorations have begun to show results. At the Biancang Yinong Information Cooperative in Tinghu District, the reporter learned that this information cooperative, which integrates multiple resources including 12316, the soil and fertilizer station, agricultural input companies, cooperatives, and science and technology commissioners, had provided nearly 500 on-site technical consultations and 17,000 yuan in online purchasing agency amounts in less than 1 month since its establishment. Fujian's “Century Village” platform has been used in more than 40,000 rural household outlets in 8 provinces nationwide, with 110,000 information officers, opening a development path of “three wins” in which the government wins public support, farmers gain benefits, and enterprises develop.
Take comprehensive measures to clear the bottlenecks of the “rural information road”
At present, these more than 100 village-level information service stations are developing and improving to varying degrees in the pilot provinces. But promoting them on a larger scale still faces many problems, which require the government, society, and market entities to solve together.
First, investment must be increased to raise the construction level of village-level service stations.
A relevant responsible person from the Agriculture Committee of Tinghu District, Yancheng, reported that at present most stations located in village offices have poor office conditions, and stations located in agricultural input stores and other business sites are generally not of high quality, with a large gap from construction standards. Li Jingyou, deputy director of the Xun County Agriculture Bureau, believes that in the early stage of development, because investment is large and results are not obvious, government financial support must be relied upon to build infrastructure well. Xu Huizhong, deputy director of the Jiangsu Agriculture Committee, said that Jiangsu Province is considering tilting existing informatization project funds toward the work of bringing information into villages and households and attracting social funds to build village-level information service stations.
At the same time, multiple pilot counties reported that there are both difficulties and opportunities in selecting and hiring grassroots information officers: on the one hand, with urbanization and the outflow of labor, there are fewer and fewer young laborers in rural areas who can operate equipment and understand business; on the other hand, against the background of increasingly severe food safety and online e-commerce continuously advancing into rural areas, more and more college students are beginning to pay attention to the rural market. It is very necessary to strengthen the training of the information officer team and the construction of incentive mechanisms. Jiangsu Province is planning to include information officer training in farmer training programs such as rural practical talent training and the “Sunshine Project,” study and formulate subsidy measures for village-level station information officers carrying out agricultural public welfare services, and promote the formation of a construction and operation mechanism of diversified input and mutual benefit and win-win.
Second, market mechanisms must be improved to enhance the sustainable operation capacity of village-level stations.
During interviews at 3 Yinong Information Cooperatives in Tinghu District, Yancheng City, information officers all mentioned the problem of low rebate ratios for acting as agents for e-commerce product sales. It is understood that in Jiangsu Province, each pilot information cooperative's agency for JD.com online shopping business is uniformly handled by Jiangsu Branch Channel Business Company, with rebate ratios between 0.05% and 2%. When the rebate ratio is not high, information cooperatives rely more on their inherent business development. Information officer Xu Hui said: “If enterprises could give up more profits, they would undoubtedly be able to open up the rural market faster. If the rebate ratio is too low, information cooperatives lack enthusiasm for agency sales. Perhaps a rebate mechanism with clearer incentives could be established.”
Third, service resources must be effectively integrated to enhance the relevance and practicality of information services. A relevant responsible person from the Changshu City Agriculture Committee said that the existing information is mainly in areas such as village affairs disclosure, party affairs disclosure, and financial disclosure. Service links such as agricultural science and technology and convenience inquiries are merely a simple integration of existing information service resources of various departments and lack targeted information services; the frequency of information resource updates is not fast; service provision is mainly inquiry-based and lacks interaction and in-depth application.
According to a relevant responsible person from the Ministry of Agriculture, in the future the Ministry of Agriculture will coordinate agricultural public welfare service resources and rural socialized service resources, integrate the four types of services of “public welfare services, convenience services, e-commerce, and training experience services,” build a trinity promotion mechanism of “government, service providers, and operators,” promote it on a larger scale, and ultimately realize the entry into villages of agricultural public welfare services, convenience services, e-commerce, and training experience services in every administrative village. (Reporters Zhang Weibin and Fang Ning)