Information consumption becomes a new fulcrum for leveraging rural markets
The latest data from the Ministry of Commerce shows that in the first half of this year, rural online retail sales exceeded 310 billion yuan. Among this, physical goods online retail sales exceeded 200 billion yuan, and online service retail sales of non-physical goods exceeded 110 billion yuan. Since the beginning of this year, rural online retail sales have continued to grow rapidly, with growth rates clearly exceeding those of cities. All signs indicate that information consumption has become a new engine driving the overall upgrading of rural consumption.
Information platforms become a new engine for consumption
Recently, in a classroom at Yatuan Village Primary School in Zhanyi County, Yunnan Province, more than 60 rural children were watching a video livestream of a teacher at the Beijing Museum of Natural History explaining the process of China's discovery of its first dinosaur fossil. Lyu Hanli, head of Taobao Small Classroom, said: "Taobao Education is the largest comprehensive online education platform in China, with over ten thousand quality educational institutions and a massive number of online courses. Through technological advances, the platform can now deliver courses conveniently and quickly to rural children. As long as they are willing, children can watch courses through video equipment set up at rural Taobao points and interact with teachers in real time."
Nationwide, the breadth and depth of rural information consumption are now continuously expanding. The Ministry of Agriculture's 12316 "Three Rural Issues" comprehensive information service platform has covered more than one-third of rural households across the country, providing farmers with a large amount of market, technology and other information services. Various localities have launched pilots for bringing information into villages and households; 7,940 Yikang (Benefiting Farmers) Information Societies have been built and put into operation in 116 counties across 26 provinces, covering 1.35% of the total number of administrative villages nationwide, and convenience services and e-commerce have begun to reach villages and households. The rural Taobao points opened by e-commerce company Alibaba have reached 16,000, involving 300 counties in 29 provinces, covering businesses from everyday online purchasing agency services to life services such as travel, medical care, and education.
"Information consumption can be divided into consumption of information products, purchase of application services, and residents' re-consumption realized through information technology platforms. Among these, information product consumption is the hardware foundation of all consumption activities, while broadband, smartphones, wireless networks, smart TVs and the like are the foundation of the foundation." said Lyu Qingzhe, a senior statistician at the Institute of Statistical Science of the National Bureau of Statistics. He introduced that the current highlights of rural information consumption growth are mainly in two aspects: one is the high growth in consumption of smartphones, smart home appliances and products related to information hardware; the other is the high growth in consumption of information content and information carriers such as mobile games and mobile literature.
At present, many nationwide rural information platforms are progressing rapidly. Wang Xiaobing, deputy director of the Market Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that the national "Village-to-Village" communications project is being deeply advanced, and comprehensive rural information service platforms such as "Nongxintong" and "Information Pastoral" in various localities are being further improved. In many places, a three-level information service system covering counties, townships and villages has been initially established, and rural information consumption and service capabilities have reached a new level. With the help of internet information platforms, rural areas across the country have established and improved public welfare services such as agricultural technology support, policy access and agricultural meteorology, convenience services such as medical registration, water and electricity bill payment and cash withdrawal, as well as e-commerce services such as purchasing consumer goods, means of production and selling agricultural products.
Scale operation heats up productive consumption
According to statistics, there are currently more than 1.53 million farmers' cooperatives nationwide, and farmers actually joining cooperatives account for about 42% of the total number of farming households. More than one-third of contracted land has already been transferred, with more than 40 million mu of newly transferred area each year. There are about 877,000 family farms nationwide, with an average operating scale of 200.2 mu. Compared with scattered traditional farming households, these new types of operating entities are more eager for cost-effective agricultural input products, all-round planting solutions and professional technical services. This undoubtedly nurtures the soil for the rise of rural productive information consumption. Among these, agricultural input e-commerce consumption and agricultural Internet of Things consumption are two major hotspots.
The popularity of agricultural input e-commerce precisely caters to the trend of rural information consumption. Tang Weiguo, head of the Nongshang No. 1 operations center in Yuanjiang County, Yunnan Province, has experienced the benefits of information consumption by new types of entities. Local cash crops are mainly mangoes and bananas, with many large growers and strong demand for agricultural inputs. Within one month, sales of agricultural input products at the Nongshang No. 1 operations center under Tang Weiguo's charge exceeded more than 200 tons. At the same time, in response to farmers' difficulties in selling mangoes and bananas, Tang Weiguo helped farmers publish agricultural product information on the Nongshang No. 1 website and smoothly completed connections with purchasers.
"Multi-level distribution of agricultural inputs is a product of the era of small-scale agriculture. After the development of appropriately scaled operations, large growers rarely go directly to retail stores to buy agricultural inputs." Liu Chunxiong, associate professor at the School of Management of Zhengzhou University, has long focused on agricultural input consumption. He found that large growers in major grain-producing areas and advantageous cash crop areas have begun to bypass retailers at all levels and connect directly with manufacturers through the internet. Through agricultural input e-commerce, they buy production materials such as seeds, fertilizers and pesticides online and obtain value-added informatized agricultural technology services.
Agricultural Internet of Things consumption is equally promising. Zhejiang Lilan Edible Fungi Farmers' Cooperative currently has 102 members, 42,000 sq m of mushroom cultivation rooms, and 5,500 sq m of cold storage. The cooperative spent 100,000 yuan to purchase the Top Cloud-Agri edible fungi cultivation environment monitoring system, using the Internet of Things to monitor and automatically control the mushroom rooms. Management in one shed was reduced from 5 people to 3 people. "Edible fungi cultivation has relatively high requirements for environmental temperature, humidity and light conditions. In the past, we relied on manual experience to adjust temperature and light, which sometimes easily caused deviations in the indoor environment." said Zhu Youjun, chairman of the cooperative. Now, with sensors, environmental parameters such as air temperature and humidity, light intensity and carbon dioxide can be displayed in real time, and can also be remotely controlled by mobile phone or computer. This ensures rapid growth of the fungi, reduces losses, and increased the cooperative's mushroom output by more than 10%.
Li Daoliang, professor at the College of Information and Electrical Engineering of China Agricultural University, said that rural productive information consumption is a process of continuously transforming agricultural production through the re-consumption of customer data. Whether farmers consume agricultural inputs online or apply the agricultural Internet of Things in production, they need to use the concept of "Internet Plus" and simultaneously implement changes including production methods, regulatory concepts and marketing methods. In this process, the innovative achievements of the internet will be deeply integrated with agricultural production, operation, management and services.
Rural logistics activates living consumption
"It's much more convenient now. I can buy what I like while sitting at home." When meeting Yang Xiao, a villager from Luxia Village, Yongfeng County, Ji'an City, Jiangxi Province, she was collecting a hook-and-loop fastener she had bought online at the village's purchasing agency point. Since this purchasing agency point was established, the trendy Yang Xiao has become a regular there, buying most daily necessities by placing orders online and picking up packages in the village. In her words, online offerings are complete, there is more room to choose, and prices are cheaper than physical stores. Now that express delivery reaches the doorstep, why rush around to buy things?
"From furniture and home appliances to melons, fruit and biscuits, there are more than 10 packages on average every day." said Yin Yulong, head of the purchasing agency point in Luxia Village. Three years ago, Yin Yulong, who was engaged in home appliance repair, keenly realized the market opportunity brought by changes in farmers' consumption concepts and started an online purchasing agency business. Most villagers did not have the habit of activating online banking, so he used his own online banking to advance payments. After the packages arrived, nearby villagers were notified by phone to pick them up, and those farther away had them delivered to their homes in time. Villagers can buy daily necessities here and can also mail some local specialty products from home to relatives and friends elsewhere. With meticulous service, Yin Yulong's repair shop became the busiest place in the village, and his income from the purchasing agency business also exceeded the income from his original repair work.
Yongfeng County is a comprehensive pilot county in Jiangxi Province for e-commerce entering rural areas. In recent years, the county has set up a special fund for the development of the e-commerce industry, made every effort to open up the channel for "online goods to the countryside," relied on platforms such as the e-commerce incubation park to cultivate e-commerce operating talent, tried its best to solve the "difficulty of online shopping" for rural farmers, and enabled more villagers to enjoy the convenient life brought by e-commerce. At present, the county has developed 96 logistics enterprises, owns more than 10 e-commerce platforms, has more than 2,500 employees, has an annual transaction volume exceeding 1 billion yuan, and has formed a freight network that can reach major cities within 48 hours.