The internet helps farmers get rich

Recently, the WeChat Moments of Shagedu residents were flooded with a WeChat post asking for "likes": once you collected 38 likes, you could go and pick strawberries on site for 10 yuan per jin (normally 25 yuan/jin). The person who posted this message was Bai Guolin, a villager from Andinghao Village in Shagedu Town. Using the internet platform, without even leaving home, he sold out his newly harvested crop of strawberries.

Following the address on WeChat, I arrived at Bai Guolin's strawberry picking garden. Three neat plastic greenhouses stood out prominently. In the middle one, Bai Guolin was busy working with his wife.

Ever since he started the WeChat like-collecting activity, Bai Guolin's phone had not stopped ringing, with people often calling to ask about the details of picking strawberries. Not only that, but residents came in an endless stream every day to pick strawberries.

I saw that inside Bai Guolin's greenhouse there was a scene full of spring vitality: in the green strawberry field, every ripe red strawberry was especially lovely, and bees occasionally darted among the flowers. Quite a few residents were also picking strawberries themselves in the greenhouse, and Qili, a Shagedu resident, was one of them. Seeing the like-collecting activity in WeChat Moments, she mobilized relatives and friends, gathered 38 likes, and came here to pick strawberries herself. "Being able to experience the picking process firsthand is really great," Qili said.

Bai Guolin told me that in 2006, with the help of the banner government, he built greenhouses on his own land in Hujitu She, Andinghao Village, and over ten years the greenhouses brought him a considerable income. To expand the scale, last year he contracted 3 greenhouses located in the courtyard of the sewage treatment plant in Jungar Economic Development Zone. Seeing that the strawberries he had planted were already ripe, yet no one was asking about them, on his daughter's suggestion Bai Guolin tried posting a like-collecting activity in WeChat Moments. Unexpectedly, more than 200 people came to the first event, and he sold 1500 yuan worth right away, which let Bai Guolin taste the sweetness of the internet.

"I've grown in greenhouses for 10 years. In the past we only focused on planting; now through WeChat, we don't have to worry about selling either. Every weekend I can sell at least 1500 yuan worth," Bai Guolin said.

Nowadays, Bai Guolin's strawberries ripen crop after crop, residents come in an endless stream to pick them, and the old couple can earn money without leaving home, so happy they can hardly say how much. To expand publicity, Bai Guolin specially applied for a WeChat account; the WeChat name is simply Bai Guolin, and the WeChat avatar is the purely natural, green, pollution-free strawberries he grows himself. Bai Guolin is figuring that he will have his daughter teach him some more, so that in the future he can use not only WeChat but also e-commerce platforms to keep growing his business.