Chartering a Plane to Sell Lychees: Returning Home to Start a Business, a Maker Helps Internet Plus Brand Agriculture Take Off

[Narration] "Building brand agriculture and then riding the tailwind of Internet Plus is the way out and the future of Hainan's agriculture today." This understanding has already become the direction practiced by some new professional farmers in Hainan.

On the afternoon of May 20, the cargo hold of a Hainan Airlines 787 passenger jet was packed full of fresh lychees grown in Hainan and took off for Beijing. Relying on fresh-produce e-commerce and a fast logistics network, fresh "Feizixiao" lychees can go from the branch straight to the consumer's dining table in as little as two days. In the eyes of returning-home maker Chen Tongkui, "chartering a plane to sell lychees" means his "Internet Plus brand agriculture" venture has taken another step forward.

Chen Tongkui is a post-80s young man from Hainan who returned to his hometown. In 2012, he came back from Shanghai to Huoshan Village in Haikou and became a "new farmer." In 2014, Chen Tongkui founded the "Huoshan Village" lychee brand, leading a team of returning-home university students to sell lychees grown in the village using traditional methods, without chemical fertilizers, without herbicides and without pesticides.

[Soundbite] (Chen Tongkui, founder of Huoshan Village Lychees)

The "Feizixiao" variety is actually a Guangdong variety, but the biggest feature of growing it in Hainan is that it ripens early. The second feature is that we grow it in Huoshan Village, so it has minerals, volcanic minerals. Third, we use natural farming methods and are transitioning to natural farming methods. This year we have achieved zero pesticides, zero chemical fertilizers and zero herbicides.

[Narration] Chen Tongkui believes that to help farmers get rich, building a "brand" is fundamental, while "Internet Plus" is an important means. On the one hand, he builds a "green, pollution-free" organic agriculture brand through concepts such as the origin information of Huoshan Village, healthy living ideas and friendly farming. On the other hand, he actively embraces every scattered entry point of the internet. The "Huoshan Village" lychee brand founded by Chen Tongkui sells through major e-commerce platforms on the internet, with a price of more than 60 yuan per jin, far above the price of ordinary lychees, yet it still wins consumers' favor.

[Soundbite] (Chen Tongkui, founder of Huoshan Village Lychees)

Because the characteristic of the internet is that every entry point is very small, since it is decentralized and also multi-centric, we now embrace every entry point and every marketing opportunity. We cooperate with every marketing entry point, and in the end it accumulates and creates a very large influence.

[Narration] "Internet Plus agriculture" requires deep integration of industries. At the maiden flight ceremony for the lychee charter plane held on May 20, the participants included not only lychee producers, but also representatives from government departments, e-commerce sales terminals, aviation logistics, and e-commerce financial service platforms.

Lei Zhenyu, deputy research consultant of the E-commerce Division of the Hainan Provincial Department of Commerce, said that the Hainan Provincial Department of Commerce is vigorously promoting the branding of Hainan's places of origin and strongly supporting the development of the fresh-produce e-commerce business, with the goal of letting "Internet Plus brand agriculture" take off.

It is understood that Hainan attaches importance to the development of "Internet Plus agriculture." Since May 2015, it has successively launched the construction of 10 internet agriculture towns, aiming to use the concepts, thinking and technology of "Internet Plus" throughout the entire agricultural industry chain and give play to the comprehensive effects of the industry.