What insights does the Xuwen pineapple crisis offer for Internet Plus agriculture?
In late April, news spread that Xuwen pineapples in Guangdong were unsalable. According to media reports, the field purchase price of the local "Bali" pineapple variety once fell to 0.3-0.4 yuan/jin, with some even below cost, a severe situation rarely seen in the past 20 years. After various parties' "market rescue" efforts and market adjustment, by early May the Xuwen pineapple market gradually recovered, with prices for high-quality fruit rising all the way, reaching a peak of around 2 yuan/jin, and for the first time going abroad. Some media vividly described this process as "the pineapple wave has passed."
Xuwen is China's largest pineapple-producing county, and the local "Bali" pineapple had not seen serious unsalability for nearly 20 years. Precisely because of this, a local grower in his 30s admitted frankly: "From my childhood to now, Xuwen's sugarcane and bananas have been replaced with many new varieties, but the pineapple alone remains the same as ever; the only change is that it used to be hauled by ox cart, and now by tractor." Pineapples could originally have been brought to market in different seasons, but because prices were high in the same period last year, smallholders rushed in unison to calculate the timing for forcing flowers, causing a clustered market arrival, which led to a plunge in pineapple prices. Even when they became "garbage prices," they still could not be sold. At this time, "Internet Plus" fully played its role in "rescuing the market."
After learning of the sales difficulties faced by local fruit growers, caring members of society and many volunteers urgently communicated with the Xuwen County Agriculture Bureau and quickly launched an online promotion campaign for Xuwen pineapples on e-commerce trading platforms, opening a "Xuwen Pineapple" section in the famous and specialty products channel of the APP and pinning it to the top. Subsequently, more and more e-commerce platforms joined in selling pineapples. The backlog of "Bali" pineapples was quickly sold to various places, and even went abroad for the first time - an Iranian businessman shipped 7 containers of pineapples and 10 containers of bananas by ocean freighter to the Middle East.
Although the immediate worries over Xuwen pineapples were resolved, the outdated local pineapple planting and business model and mindset were fully exposed, and the important value of informatization and "Internet Plus" for pineapple planting, production and operation had not been comprehensively recognized. The local production model still remained at the stage of traditional smallholder planting, the varieties were also "unchanged for decades," there was hardly any investment in scientific and technological innovation, and in terms of market guidance there was basically a "blank." Therefore, when faced with an unexpected market unsalability, it was natural to become at a loss and even fall into disarray.
Recently, 8 departments including the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the "Three-Year Action Plan for 'Internet Plus' Modern Agriculture," which clearly put forward 11 main tasks. It particularly mentioned that in management, the focus should be on promoting data resource sharing and opening with big data as the core, supporting decision-making, and comprehensively improving government information capacity and level; in services, the focus should be on emphasizing the use of the Internet to advance comprehensive information services related to agriculture; in agriculture and rural areas, it is necessary to strengthen the cultivation of new-type professional farmers and new rural construction, and vigorously promote the construction of infrastructure such as networks and logistics.
The above-mentioned "Plan" provides a basic guideline for the development of modern agriculture in China, but to avoid "pineapple waves" as much as possible, the lessons and experience must also be translated into action from paper and talk as early as possible. Agricultural planting should change its mindset, use large-scale planting and corporate management to lay a good foundation for scientific and technological innovation and the introduction of fine varieties, and at the same time be good at using Internet information to guide the market, integrating "Internet Plus" and e-commerce throughout planting, production and operation, and taking the development path of quality, branding and "Internet Plus." Only in this way can sustainable economic and social benefits be achieved.