60 Years of the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives: Rooted in Rural Areas, Serving Farmers

    From going village to village and household to household to promote industrial goods going to the countryside and agricultural products entering the cities, to establishing specialized cooperatives; from agricultural input supply to renewable resource recycling; from contracted ploughing and planting and land trusteeship to cooperative finance…… In recent years, the national supply and marketing cooperative system has seized opportunities such as the building of a new countryside, continuously deepened institutional reform, improved service networks, expanded service functions, and actively explored new paths toward developing into comprehensive service organizations.

Implementing the “New Network Project” to Accelerate the Building of a Modern Rural Circulation Network

For a long time, the building of rural circulation networks in China was weak, the two-way flow of goods was not smooth, and the alternating situations of agricultural products being “hard to buy” and “hard to sell” attracted public attention.

Wang Xia, director of the Council of the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives, said that for this reason, starting in 2006, on the basis of transforming traditional business networks, the supply and marketing cooperative system began implementing the New Rural Modern Circulation Business Service Network Project (the “New Network Project”). Following the principles of “one network for multiple uses, two-way circulation, and comprehensive services,” it focused on building networks around agricultural inputs, agricultural and sideline products, daily consumer goods, and renewable resource recycling and utilization, and the benefits to farmers have become increasingly prominent.

In Shanxi, the Xiaojiazhuang Supply and Marketing Cooperative in Fenyang City took the “New Network Project” as an opportunity and invested nearly 20 million yuan to build a 10,000 sq m agricultural inputs market, a daily necessities distribution center of more than 3,000 sq m, and 20 standardized village-level convenience stores, achieving full coverage of the rural network.

“Move away the three-foot counter and open a modern supermarket, so that farmers can enjoy the same shopping environment at their doorstep as city residents.” said Wu Shengyao, director of the Xiaojiazhuang Supply and Marketing Cooperative.

As of now, the supply and marketing cooperative system’s “New Network Project” has developed more than 900,000 various chain operation service outlets, covering 80% of townships and 40% of administrative villages nationwide, initially forming a chain operation network with distribution centers in counties, comprehensive supermarkets in townships, and convenience stores in villages.

Connecting with Agricultural Needs, Linking “Small Production” with the “Big Market”

Wenshang County in Shandong, located on the southwestern Shandong Plain, has 940,000 mu of cultivated land and is a well-known major agricultural county and major grain-producing county. But in recent years, many local farmers have encountered the difficulty that “if they work away from home they cannot tend the land, and if they tend the land they delay earning money from work.”

For this reason, the Wenshang County Supply and Marketing Cooperative, on the basis of the household contract responsibility system, provides farmers with full socialized services for ploughing, planting, management, harvesting, and selling, as well as scientific and technological services such as improved seeds and methods and water-saving irrigation. At present, the county supply and marketing cooperative’s trusteeship services cover 134 villages, with a service area of 150,000 mu, and have cumulatively saved costs and increased income for farmers by more than 60 million yuan.

The exploration by the Wenshang County Supply and Marketing Cooperative is a microcosm of the national supply and marketing cooperative system’s implementation of the “Socialized Services Benefiting Farmers Project.”

Giving play to the advantage of being “linked upward to production bases and downward to consumer terminals,” the supply and marketing cooperative system has innovated agricultural service methods. Through methods such as “contracted ploughing and land trusteeship,” it carries out “nanny-style” and “menu-style” services, providing farmers and new types of agricultural business entities with full pre-production, mid-production, and post-production services, linking the small production of millions of households with the ever-changing big market. While effectively solving problems such as idle cultivated land and extensive management, it also improves the scale efficiency of agriculture.

In addition, in response to farmers’ difficulties in obtaining loans and financing, supply and marketing cooperatives in Zhejiang and other places have also addressed the chronic problem of rural “financial anemia” by developing credit cooperation forms such as mutual aid funds.

Expanding Diversified Operations to Open Up the “Last Mile” of Services for Urban and Rural Residents

Serving farmers is the starting point and ultimate goal of deepening reform of the supply and marketing cooperatives.

Facing the new situation of accelerated new-type urbanization, the supply and marketing cooperative system fully gives play to its advantage of being rooted at the grassroots level, gathers various social resources, and vigorously carries out comprehensive rural community services.

As of the end of June this year, the supply and marketing cooperative system had developed more than 320,000 comprehensive agricultural and rural service cooperatives (centers), covering more than 50% of administrative villages nationwide.

It is understood that at present each comprehensive service cooperative has convenience stores for agricultural inputs and daily consumer goods, and most of them also have business projects such as “crop clinics,” purchasing of agricultural and sideline products, renewable resource recycling, reading rooms, activity centers for the elderly, and bathing and dining, while some also provide public welfare services such as legal consultation, government affairs, and police services.

Wang Xia expressed that in 2014 the supply and marketing cooperative system should newly develop 25,000 comprehensive service cooperatives. While consolidating and upgrading traditional business operations, it should proactively take on grassroots services from relevant agriculture-related departments, promote the entry of various public services into villages and households, and advance the equalization of basic public services between urban and rural areas.