What role do cold storage facilities play in the development of rural e-commerce?
Under the new situation of "mass entrepreneurship and innovation," the development of rural fresh food e-commerce in recent years has been advancing with tremendous momentum.
Under the new situation, by giving play to the role of market mechanisms, accelerating the development of rural e-commerce, and reasonably combining rural fresh produce origins with the internet, it is more conducive to promoting the upgrading of the agricultural structure, increasing farmers' income, and accelerating rural economic growth. Therefore, strongly supporting the development of rural e-commerce is an important measure for China to accelerate the transformation of agricultural development methods at present.
Relevant policies for the development of rural fresh food e-commerce
In order to develop the rural e-commerce industry, local governments have also successively issued corresponding policies. Recently, the General Office of the Chengdu Municipal People's Government also issued the "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Agricultural and Rural E-commerce." The Opinions proposed the working approach and work goals for Chengdu's development of agricultural and rural e-commerce in the coming period, clearly stating that by 2017, the city will cultivate 3-5 local agricultural e-commerce enterprises with national influence, the e-commerce application rate of agricultural leading enterprises above the municipal level in the city will reach 100%, and the e-commerce sales revenue of agricultural products will account for more than 30% of total sales revenue; the city will build 10 e-commerce demonstration counties (cities, districts) with extensive application, advanced models, and a certain driving and demonstrative role, build 30 e-commerce demonstration towns (townships) for specialty agricultural products, and build 100 e-commerce demonstration villages (bases) for specialty agricultural products. By 2020, the city will cultivate 8-10 local agricultural e-commerce enterprises with national influence, achieve e-commerce sales revenue of agricultural products accounting for more than 40% of total sales revenue, and reach the nationally leading level in agricultural and rural e-commerce development.
Not only Chengdu, but all parts of the country have also successively issued various policies suited to local supply characteristics for the development of rural e-commerce, encouraging and promoting the reasonable development of rural e-commerce.
Cold storage on the road of e-commerce development
Since we are talking about rural e-commerce, cold storage must be mentioned.
According to statistics, among the categories operated in rural e-commerce, food still occupies the vast majority, and among food, fruits and vegetables account for the largest proportion. Therefore, on the road to developing rural e-commerce, the design and planning, construction and installation, and later use of fresh-keeping cold storage for fruits and vegetables must receive corresponding attention. At the same time, the corresponding subsidy and preferential policies for rural cold storage have also become increasingly complete.
"Rural e-commerce, especially fresh food e-commerce operations, must have strict standards for cold storage requirements. First, it concerns food safety and hygiene; second, it is greatly related to the quality and taste of fruits and vegetables, as well as the profits of e-commerce operators." A low-temperature engineer at Haoshuang Refrigeration analyzed: "At present, in China's rural e-commerce, direct sales from the place of origin is the greatest advantage, so the construction and planning of cold storage at the place of origin also directly affects e-commerce revenue. But from the current situation, the correct use and planning of cold storage has clearly not received the attention it deserves. Statistical surveys have found that not only for origin-based e-commerce, but for China's fruits and vegetables as a whole, annual losses caused by improper storage amount to as much as hundreds of millions of yuan. Losses caused by improper use of cold storage or missing links in the cold chain have also remained persistently high. For example, the low utilization rate of pre-cooling cold storage for fruits and vegetables in China is also a main cause of losses."
The prospects of pre-cooling cold storage
The loss rate of fruits and vegetables caused by incomplete cold chains has also attracted attention in many places. In recent years, the Hainan Provincial Government has allocated special funds each year to support the construction of pre-cooling cold storage. From the initial 10 million yuan per year with a subsidy of 300 yuan per ton, it has developed to the current 50 million yuan per year with a subsidy of 1,000 yuan per ton. Farmers' professional cooperatives, agricultural enterprises, and large transport and marketing households have set off a boom in building pre-cooling cold storage. Since the implementation of the subsidies, the government has invested a total of 120 million yuan. Hainan has built 141 pre-cooling cold storage facilities across the province, with a cold storage capacity of 210,000 tons, handling 4.2 million tons of melons, fruits, and vegetables annually, directly driving social investment of 1.28 billion yuan.
Through pre-cooling, fruits and vegetables can directly and effectively kill bacteria carried on them, reduce losses during long-distance transportation, and improve the quality of melons, fruits, and vegetables. The reduced losses can increase farmers' income by more than 5 billion yuan each year.
The impact of pre-cooling cold storage alone on origin-based e-commerce allows one to glimpse the role that cold storage plays in the entire agricultural food industry chain, and also more powerfully demonstrates the important position of the entire cold storage engineering in developing the rural e-commerce economy and opening up new agricultural industry models in China.