How a Rural E-commerce Expert Is Made

Editor's Note: Riding the "east wind" of the Internet to boost sales of agricultural products, college-graduate village officials pick up their phones in the fields, solving farmers' sales problems and helping quality agricultural products fetch a "premium price." They have become the villagers' problem-solvers and the village's e-commerce "experts."

Zhou Nan: Selling "Millet" for a "Big Price"

"The rice here sells for 20 yuan per jin," said Wang Qingzhi, head of the Dongrun Rice Planting Professional Cooperative in Guanyun County, Jiangsu Province. "Fine words are no match for seeing with your own eyes. Our rice packaging boxes have a QR code on them, and a single scan with a mobile phone lets you learn all the information about the rice." Rice at 20 yuan per jin sounds unbelievable, but it is indeed the case, and the QR code Wang Qingzhi mentioned is where the secret of this wealth lies.

The Dongrun Rice Planting Professional Cooperative in Guanyun County was founded in 2009 and has a down-to-earth brand called "Dingdang River Rice," named because it is produced along the Dingdang River, an important drinking water source for Guanyun County. At first, the cooperative had a quality rice source in hand, but no one recognized its value and it could not fetch a good price, and for a time it could not open up the market. "There are too many people on the market selling aged rice and polished rice under the guise of organic, pollution-free rice. We could talk until our mouths went dry and still no one believed us. Watching 'pork sold at cabbage price' really left a bad taste in our mouths." It was not just Wang Qingzhi; all the members were anxious, yet they simply could not find a breakthrough to open up sales.

In August 2011, Zhou Nan became a college-graduate village official, arriving at Liuli Village, Dongwangji Township, to serve as a member of the Party General Branch Committee. Through the "Month of Getting Familiar with Township and Village Conditions" survey activity for new village officials carried out by the County Party Committee Organization Department, Zhou Nan learned about the situation of the Dongrun Rice Planting Professional Cooperative. Using the marketing expertise he had studied, and after investigation and analysis, he wrote a research report titled "Suggestions on the Sales of Dingdang River Rice." "When I saw Xiao Zhou's report, I felt this young man was no ordinary person, and that our rice had hope," Wang Qingzhi said, still a little excited when recalling the situation at the time. Next, through coordination by the County Party Committee Organization Department, Zhou Nan got in touch with Director Zhao Jiamin of the County Agriculture Committee and earnestly expressed his ideas to Director Zhao, who was very pleased after hearing them and immediately expressed full support.

In May 2012, Zhou Nan adopted a "piggybacking" approach with the Guanyun Agriculture Network, establishing a subpage on which he posted video of the entire rice production process from planting, production, processing, packaging to finished product, along with images of the China Organic Product logo and production license, as well as a product introduction, place of origin, nutritional composition table, and so on. In October 2012, Zhou Nan discussed with the professional cooperative setting up a QR code on the Dingdang River Rice packaging box, so that after users scan the QR code with a mobile phone, they can enter the Dingdang River Rice page and browse all the information. Zhou Nan said: "Doing this has two advantages. First, it can make use of the government authority of the Guanyun Agriculture Network to quickly gain customer recognition; second, it increases publicity and expands influence." Through this method, the cooperative gradually opened up its sales situation, and sales increased year by year. Today the professional cooperative has established a trading company, with an annual output of 1.2 million jin of Dingdang River Rice and annual sales revenue of 24 million yuan. The products not only sell well in the province, but are also exported to Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Beijing, Gansu, Shaanxi and other provinces and municipalities, making it a key private enterprise in Guanyun County.

Now Zhou Nan has grown into deputy secretary of the village Party General Branch. When asked about his feelings, Zhou Nan said: "There is necessity within chance. The chance was that I had the opportunity to serve as a village official in Dongwangji Township; the necessity is that the Internet information express has already become a new engine for promoting economic and social development, and Guanyun County started early and gradually matured in encouraging and promoting college-graduate village officials to use the Internet to serve 'agriculture, rural areas and farmers.' As a college-graduate village official, I merely borrowed the 'east wind' to help in serving 'agriculture, rural areas and farmers.'"