E-commerce training helps farmers increase income and move toward moderate prosperity
Editor's note: As the concept of "Internet Plus" takes root in people's hearts, rural e-commerce is developing rapidly. Cultivating farmers' internet awareness and increasing their e-commerce knowledge and capabilities has become an important part of farmer training in various places. How can farmer training be leveraged to foster new growth points in rural areas and increase farmers' incomes? Please see this issue's special report——
"Boss, please help me buy a pair of size 42 leather shoes..." "Boss, please help me buy a few boxes of mosquito coils..." For some time recently, Zu Jiajie, a partner at the Taobao point in Zuyao Village, Chenwei Township, by the shores of Hongze Lake, has been especially busy.
"Alright! Aunties and uncles, don't worry, take your time. There are only so many people here, and it won't be long before everyone can buy what they want," Zu Jiajie said as he busied himself while reassuring the villagers.
In fact, this bustling scene has only been going on for a little over a year. Just last April, he was still "indifferent" to e-commerce. "One day, I suddenly received a notice that I was to attend Taobao training, so I went with the idea of giving it a try. Hey, after sitting through a few classes, I was hooked and became a partner. I never imagined business could be this booming."
From "farmer" to "shop owner," farmers embrace the internet
In Sihong County, through the "awakening" brought by training organized by the county, examples like Zu Jiajie——who, through government-funded training, transformed from a "layman" into a "shop owner"——are everywhere.
Sihong County is a traditional major agricultural county, with nearly 200,000 farmers working away from home each year. Not only are they far from their hometowns, but they are also far from their loved ones, and their incomes are not very high either. In addition, since 2012 the county has been exploring moderate-scale land transfer and operation. As of now, more than 60% of the county's land has achieved scale operation, more than 8,200 operating entities have emerged, and over 100,000 laborers have been freed from the land.
How to enable these farmers who have left the land to not only receive land rent but also gain a stable additional income has become a problem awaiting solution before the county leaders.
After repeated research and drawing on experience from other places, the county leaders finally decided to make e-commerce the breakthrough solution for increasing farmers' incomes.
Although developing e-commerce requires little investment, has a low threshold, and yields quick results, it is still unfamiliar and novel to farmers accustomed to facing the loess with their backs to the sky. To this end, the county proceeded step by step, starting with training, so that farmers could quickly perceive the internet, become familiar with it, and then embrace it.
Training comes with subsidies, entrepreneurship has a platform, and the spark of rural e-commerce is ignited
Starting in 2014, every Saturday at 6 p.m., when you walk into the Sihong County Internet Entrepreneurship Park in the Sihong County Economic Development Zone, you will always see the conference room brightly lit, with nearly a hundred people packing the not-so-large room. On stage, the internet entrepreneurship instructor speaks earnestly; below, the "students" listen and take notes attentively. The "students," who barely know one another, are almost all farmers from various townships across the county. This kind of training, known as "Six-Six Entrepreneurship," has been steadfastly maintained for more than 2 years.
This is a microcosm of Sihong County's systematic training for farmers. In townships and villages, training like this is held almost once a week, organized by township or village. All training is fully paid for by the government, and farmers attend lectures free of charge. Data provided by the Sihong County Commerce Bureau shows that since the first half of this year alone, various types of e-commerce training across the county have trained 11,600 person-times.
At the same time, the county also encourages qualified professional social training institutions to participate in Sihong County's e-commerce business training, giving financial subsidies to approved training projects. For initial training carried out by training institutions, a subsidy of 400 yuan per person is given; for advanced training carried out by training institutions, a subsidy of 600 yuan per person is given; for elite training carried out by training institutions, a subsidy of 800 yuan per person is given.
After farmers master relevant skills through training, the county, township, and village levels actively build e-commerce entrepreneurship incubation platforms for them. At the county level, the Colorful Sihong Internet Entrepreneurship Industrial Park is built in the county seat as the leader driving e-commerce development across the county, encouraging clustered e-commerce development. The park covers an area of more than 50 mu, with a total building area of 80,000 sq m, integrating production, sales, warehousing, logistics, training, experience, and other functions, becoming a county-level e-commerce entrepreneurship pilot zone. In its first year of establishment, it attracted more than a hundred e-commerce enterprises to settle in; at the township level, relying on the county's 23 township industrial concentration zones, Colorful Sihong Entrepreneurship Parks (incubation centers) were established, actively giving play to their training, incubation, and clustering functions, and successively producing outstanding township e-commerce enterprises such as Niuniu E-commerce, Yaya E-commerce, Jinji Feather Towels, and Yu Wenwu Crafts; at the village level, in-depth cooperation was carried out with Alibaba Rural Taobao, and more than 120 rural Taobao village-level service stations were built, promoting the two-way circulation of "online goods to the countryside" and "agricultural products to the cities."
Encouraging e-commerce entrepreneurship, preferential policies in "a whole basketful"
In Sihong County, the preferential policies encouraging farmers to start e-commerce businesses can indeed be described as "a whole basketful." For township-level internet entrepreneurship incubation centers with a building area of 2,000 sq m (inclusive) or more, complete supporting facilities for training, warehousing, logistics, and local product display, and more than 10 settled e-commerce enterprises in normal operation, a one-time subsidy of no more than 100,000 yuan is given. Characteristic agricultural products going to market are encouraged, with 10 demonstration stores of "one village, one product, one store" selected each year, each receiving a reward of 10,000 yuan. For e-commerce service stations with complete service functions and outstanding performance in local products going to market, the top 10 are selected each year, awarded the honorary title of "Top Ten Village E-commerce Service Stations," and each station is given a reward of 10,000 yuan. Each year, 10 "Outstanding Online Sales Enterprises" are selected, each receiving a reward of 50,000 yuan. For e-commerce R&D projects with independent intellectual property rights, a reward of 10% of the actual investment amount is given, with a maximum of no more than 1 million yuan; for small and micro e-commerce businesses selling local characteristic agricultural products with an annual express delivery volume reaching 5,000 pieces, a subsidy of 0.5 yuan per piece is given...
Logistics is the wings of e-commerce. Through the leverage of policy, Sihong County encourages the development of the logistics industry, letting Sihong's e-commerce industry "fly" farther. The county clearly stipulates that for well-known express and logistics enterprises that set up branches in the internet entrepreneurship park or the express logistics park, when their annual shipment volume first reaches 1 million pieces or 2 million pieces, one-time rewards of 50,000 yuan and 100,000 yuan are given respectively. As of now, more than 500 logistics enterprises above designated size have emerged across the county.
A package of preferential policies and a favorable internet entrepreneurship environment, like spring breeze and fine rain, nourish the fission-style development of Sihong's e-commerce. As of now, the county has seen the emergence of as many as 7,500 e-commerce operators reaching a certain scale, among whom more than 6,000 are farmers transformed into "shop owners."
The vigorous development of e-commerce in Sihong County has benefited farmers the most. Cui Jinchuan, a farmer from Jieji Township, works in goods sorting at an express company in the urban area, working 8 hours a day, with a monthly income of more than 4,000 yuan. Liu Xianzhan, deputy director of the Sihong County Commerce Bureau, introduced that across the county's numerous online shops and the extended industrial chains, jobs have been provided for at least 35,000 farmers. Although their work is not all "long-term employment," their average annual wage income is no less than 20,000 yuan. Adding wage earners and farmer "shop owners" together, a total of 41,000 farmers across the county are pulling themselves toward moderate prosperity along the internet cable.