Internet Plus agriculture is not just about developing rural e-commerce

"Internet Plus agriculture" is by no means just about developing rural e-commerce. The "marriage" between the internet and agriculture is also far from being as simple as opening an online local store or clicking a mouse to get connected. From a long-term development perspective, "Internet Plus agriculture" is about bringing internet thinking into agriculture.

According to reports, the Ministry of Agriculture and Alibaba recently signed an agricultural e-commerce cooperation agreement in Suzhou, under which the two sides will cooperate in areas such as the information-into-villages project, agricultural e-commerce, e-commerce poverty alleviation and e-commerce training. This is also the first time the Ministry of Agriculture has "joined hands" with an e-commerce enterprise.

In recent years, with the development of e-commerce in the agricultural sector, "Internet Plus agriculture" has stood at the forefront of the times. As the "Internet Plus" tide surges, a magical chemical reaction is taking place between the "most rural" agriculture in people's eyes and the "most foreign" internet. Facing this blue ocean, internet giants are rushing to the countryside to "stake out territory." Local governments also hope to use the power of the internet to boost local economies and create showcase projects. For a time, agricultural e-commerce was in full swing.

It can be seen that many high-quality agricultural products have indeed caught the e-commerce express train in this wave and sold well across the country. At the forefront of the internet, farmers have moved from the arduous labor of "every drop of sweat falling in eight pieces" to the elegant completion of a gentle click of the mouse; from "going street by street and alley by alley to earn a shout" to building supermarkets on the internet; from "carrying cash home for the New Year" to getting agricultural loans settled in one stop at their doorstep. With the continuous improvement of the level of agricultural modernization, farmers who once faced the yellow earth with their backs to the sky will eventually complete the transformation from an "identity" to a "profession."

However, "Internet Plus agriculture" is by no means just about developing rural e-commerce. The "marriage" between the internet and agriculture is also far from being as simple as opening an online local store or clicking a mouse to get connected. From a long-term development perspective, "Internet Plus agriculture" is about bringing internet thinking into agriculture. In the blueprint of "new agriculture," it will connect satellites in the sky with seeds in the ground, incorporate the slaughter of a single pig into a global agricultural data analysis system, make data "come alive" in industrial reshaping, and make agriculture begin to "think." In addition, it is necessary to use the power of science and technology to tap income-increasing potential, accelerate the development of "smart agriculture," help farmers build internet-of-things experimental and demonstration bases for field planting, protected horticulture and large-scale breeding, promote internet-of-things application models in agriculture that save costs and increase efficiency, and use the power of science and technology to liberate farmers from physical labor and from toil, fatigue and dirt. More importantly, through the internet's development concepts and innovative models, it is necessary to change the production and organizational forms of agriculture, change the face of rural areas and farmers, and make farming a promising and enviable profession.

With the rise of e-commerce in rural areas, more and more migrant workers, college and secondary school graduates and veterans, and even business elites and returnees from overseas are beginning to return to their hometowns to engage in agricultural entrepreneurship and innovation, becoming new-type farmers. They have brought advanced science and technology and management and business concepts, innovatively sold specialty agricultural products, and introduced cultural creativity into the agricultural industry. "Farmer" has returned from an identity label to an occupational label, increasingly becoming a respectable and dignified profession.

In the future, we have too many expectations for e-commerce entering villages, but we should also think rationally. We should not let agriculture and farmers "get hot-headed and rush in all at once" amid the great tide of the internet. Instead, we should find a development model suited to the characteristics of agriculture as an industry, so that the internet can truly take root in agriculture and rural areas and serve farmers. This is precisely where the hope and future of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" in the new era lie.