How new e-commerce poverty alleviation ideas help win the battle against poverty
Potatoes, native eggs, apples, flax, tartary buckwheat... In Gansu, specialty agricultural products like these are too numerous to count. After tasting them in person, visitors often cannot help exclaiming that the flavor is truly different. But because transportation is underdeveloped, these delicious specialties are hidden away in the mountains, difficult to ship elsewhere, and unable to generate income for local farmers.
Since 2015, China Construction Bank Gansu Branch has introduced Shanrong Business into poor villages, helping local enterprises and farmers sell specialty agricultural and sideline products, blazing a trail of e-commerce poverty alleviation. At the "Shanrong Western Tour - Gansu Targeted Poverty Alleviation E-commerce Matchmaking Meeting" recently held by China Construction Bank, more than 50 agricultural product producers from poor areas within the province enthusiastically promoted their products, attracting more than 100 buyers from across the country to come and discuss cooperation. More Gansu delicacies will travel from Shanrong Business to all parts of the country.
Leading enterprises drive farmers' development
Farmers in poor areas have limited education and do not know much about the concept of e-commerce. Although some farmers have learned to open online stores, their small scale of planting and breeding means they cannot form their own independent brands. E-commerce sales may seem simple and convenient, but doing them truly well is extremely difficult for farmers.
Relying on local leading enterprises and linking their upstream small enterprises, cooperatives and farmers, China Construction Bank Gansu Branch created a "leading enterprise + farmers + e-commerce" model, effectively solving this problem. Tongwei County Xiaoling Trading Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xiaoling Trading") is a local leading enterprise mainly dealing in agricultural products. In 2014 it opened a store on Shanrong Business, mainly selling flax oil and flour products. Over two years, the company's sales on the Shanrong platform reached 420,000 yuan.
After growing stronger, Xiaoling Trading wanted to lead more farmers out of poverty and launched deep cooperation with China Construction Bank. Zhang Xiaoling, chairman of Xiaoling Trading Co., Ltd., said that China Construction Bank provided the company with diversified services such as financing, settlement and loans. A 20 million yuan loan issued through a green channel was quickly put into building the first phase of an ecological farm - a chicken farm. The chicken farm is managed uniformly by a farmers' cooperative. According to the breeding farmers, the cooperative advanced the cost of 600 chickens at the earlier stage, to be offset after the eggs are delivered. The eggs bought back are sold uniformly by the cooperative and can be sold on the Shanrong Business platform.
"According to the blueprint for three-dimensional farming, we are cultivating economic tree seedlings around the chicken farm in batches and stages, totaling 6,000 mu." Zhang Xiaoling said, pointing to the planned land below the hill.
The land Xiaoling Trading transferred from farmers is all forest wasteland, while the good land and flat land is kept by the farmers themselves. Depending on the terrain, the annual rent for one mu of forest wasteland ranges from 40 to 100 yuan. After transferring the land, Xiaoling Trading rehires farmers to tend it, planting more than 10 kinds of plants including Mongolian Scots pine and larch. Zhang Xiaoling said: "We want to build leisure agriculture integrating tourism, sightseeing and picking, attracting city visitors to tour and play and experience farm life. According to the plan, the total investment in the first phase is 580 million yuan, including 48 cooperatives, over a period of 5 years. In the future, the second phase will spread to the surrounding area."
"We mainly set up the framework, let small enterprises come in, and let farmers become well-off." Zhang Xiaoling said. The entire ecological park covers 8 villages, including 4 key villages for targeted poverty alleviation, with one brand per village, such as chicken farming and sheep farming. Poor households can work in the park or do their own breeding. At present, China Construction Bank has provided 120 million yuan in loans for the park's construction.
Establishing an e-commerce incubator company
Qin'an County in Tianshui, Gansu, is rich in apples. The apples here are crisp and sweet with an excellent taste; only their sales channels are poor. Problems such as single and outdated sales channels, unregulated product quality, lack of a unified brand and image, and unhealthy price-cutting among sellers have seriously restricted the development of Qin'an apples. Sales cannot rise, and farmers have a bumper harvest without a bumper income.
China Construction Bank Gansu Branch and the Qin'an County government cooperated to determine a targeted e-commerce poverty alleviation strategy of "e-commerce company + cooperative + farmers", and in early 2016 established Qinlong Incubator E-commerce Company. China Construction Bank is responsible for integrating information resources and proposing planning suggestions, while Qinlong Incubator Company formulates a business management plan covering apple brand building, quality assurance, unified standards, reasonable marketing and coordinated supervision, then signs cooperation agreements with registered poor households and makes unified arrangements for managing apple production and sales activities.
In the factory building of Qinlong Incubator Company, workers are busy sorting Huaniu apples. After being uniformly labeled "Qin'an", they are sent by express delivery to all parts of the country. While packing boxes, a staff member did not forget to explain, "Our Huaniu here is slightly crisp, especially sweet, and much tastier than what is generally sold in supermarkets."
Bi Sheng, deputy head of Qin'an County, said that when a single enterprise does e-commerce, there are two problems: large input and small output, and difficulty in publicity and promotion. The incubator company brings all enterprises and farmers together and solves these two problems. "We can also use government resources and the resources of financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies to publish sales information on their WeChat public platforms." Bi Sheng originally worked at the Jiangsu Insurance Regulatory Bureau and came to Qin'an County on a temporary posting more than half a year ago; he is very skilled at e-commerce publicity and promotion.
Bi Sheng said that after the incubator company joined China Construction Bank's Shanrong Business platform, it originally planned to ask China Construction Bank to help hold an internal bank purchase, but there were not many apples left in stock and they feared supply would not keep up, so they could only wait until this year's autumn harvest. By then, Qin'an apples will be promoted among China Construction Bank's 300,000 employees across the bank, thereby building a good reputation.
An investigation found that Qin'an apples fetch the highest price on the wholesale market, but outside the wholesale market, no trace of Qin'an apples can be seen; they are labeled with other brands and continue to be sold. For this reason, Qinlong Incubator Company also launched a fruit tree subscription activity. Customers can buy one-year ownership of a fruit tree, and after the apples ripen, the company sends them to the customer by express delivery. During the growing period, fruit farmers regularly take photos of fertilization, pesticide use and other conditions and upload them online for customers to browse and check.
"In this way, the apple sales period is extended and supply and demand are matched. After selling the fruit trees, the fruit farmers will put their minds into careful planting and will not be greedy for quantity. For fruit farmers and enterprises, capital is recovered quickly; funds can be collected as soon as the flowers bloom, avoiding the risk of market fluctuations." Bi Sheng said that fruit tree subscription also has the nature of a financial asset, and with the order one can go to a bank for financing.