Industry Takes Root in Hainan's Internet Agriculture Towns

Original title: The "Hainan Charm" of Internet Agriculture Towns

At the village-level service center of Meishe Village, Shishan Town, Xiuying District, Haikou City, Hainan Province, an information officer is showcasing local specialty agricultural products to tourists through an online platform. Photo by Zhang Mao

Information online, products offline. "Internet Plus" is entering the lives of countless households and permeating every corner of agricultural production and rural life. Is Internet Plus agriculture simply putting information online, or is it deep industrial integration? Is it the convenience of clicking a mouse to sell products, or the reorganization and upgrading of all industrial elements? The construction of Internet agriculture towns in Hainan aims to establish a "Internet Plus Modern Agriculture" operating system centered on towns, with towns leading villages and integrating towns and villages, providing a practical example for studying how informatization can lead the transformation and upgrading of modern agriculture.

In the continuous drizzle of early spring, Hong Yiqian, director of the village committee of Shicha Village, led villagers in securing Dendrobium nobile (jinchai shihu) plants onto moss-covered volcanic rocks. "In a year, these over 100 mu of Dendrobium will be ready for harvest, with an output value of around 100,000 yuan per mu."

Shicha Village belongs to Shishan Town, Xiuying District, Haikou City, Hainan Province. Its eight subordinate natural villages are all located in volcanic hilly areas with little land and thin soil, where farmers traditionally could only grow crops such as black beans and sesame, "poor because of the mountains." Last year, the volcanic wasteland here, which closely mimics the wild environment of Dendrobium and is naturally selenium-rich, attracted Hainan Dendrobium Health Industry Co., Ltd. and Haikou Urban-Rural Coordinated Development Group Co., Ltd. to invest in building a Dendrobium nobile base. "Gold from wasteland" gave villagers new hope for achieving moderate prosperity.

"Without the Internet agriculture town, how could we have connected with so many enterprises?" Hong Yiqian said. After Shishan Town was incorporated into the Internet agriculture town construction last year, they not only connected with Dendrobium enterprises, but also, inspired by e-commerce and tourism companies, developed the volcanic caves and mountain trails for tourism, integrating into the "big picture" of Shishan Town's volcanic specialty tourism.

Since May 2015, Hainan has launched the construction of 10 Internet agriculture towns, including Shishan in Haikou, Huiwen in Wenchang, and Fushan in Chengmai. These towns, tailored to local conditions, have preliminarily explored development models with distinctive characteristics, brewing a "Hainan charm" beyond coconut groves and blue seas.

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Rooted in Industry, "Internet Plus" Has Vitality

Hainan regards "Internet Plus" as an important opportunity to support scientific development and green rise, has issued several opinions on accelerating the development of the Internet industry, and proposed building a batch of Internet agriculture towns. This idea is based on Hainan's practice of using informatization to lead agricultural modernization.

According to Wang Xiaoqiao, deputy director of the Hainan Provincial Department of Agriculture, since 2012, Hainan Province has focused on a series of key tasks around agricultural e-commerce, agricultural big data service management platforms, and agricultural IoT, enabling information technology to continuously penetrate the entire process of agricultural production, operation, management, and services. In 2015, the province's agricultural product e-commerce sales reached 8.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25%, accounting for 9.5% of agricultural added value. Building Internet agriculture towns is considered an important vehicle for advancing agricultural informatization and threading information technology throughout the entire process of agricultural structural adjustment and transformation of development modes.

"Internet agriculture towns are not a 'vanity' project. Success depends on whether they can promote agricultural efficiency and increase farmers' income," Wang Xiaoqiao stated. Hainan has clearly proposed a construction approach of relying on industry, driving employment, promoting farmer income growth, and benefiting the people.

Hainan's agricultural industry has obvious town-level characteristics. Shishan Town in Haikou has its volcanic agricultural product series, Huiwen Town in Wenchang has its Buddhist bead processing industry, and Fushan Town in Chengmai has its coffee industry, all taking initial shape and basically forming "one town, one product," but the level of development of these industries still needs improvement.

In Huiwen Town, Wenchang City, known as China's hometown of Buddhist beads, there are 51 processing factories with a certain scale of production and over 700 family workshops. "Many people know about 'Huiwen Buddhist beads,' but product quality varies greatly. Judgment of appearance is based on unwritten conventions, making it difficult to meet the requirements of online transactions," said Zeng Xiaohong, sales director of Wenchang Quanbang Buddhist Bead Craft Factory.

Relying on the Internet to connect consumer demand with specialty products, deeply exploring and actively cultivating characteristic leading industries, towns have become the foothold for Hainan's advancement of "Internet Plus Modern Agriculture."

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Deep Integration Adds "New Green" to Characteristic Towns

In terms of top-level design, the construction of Internet agriculture towns revolves around five major projects: building one town-level comprehensive management platform, developing ten modern agriculture industrial parks, creating one hundred characteristic agricultural brands, supporting one thousand large farming households, and cultivating ten thousand makers; achieving four full coverages: full coverage of fiber optic connections into villages and households, full coverage of production and operation management, full coverage of rural financial services based on rural land transfer confirmation, and full coverage of new farmer entrepreneurship and innovation actions.

To address problems such as poor network infrastructure in villages and towns and severe talent shortages, a government-coordinated approach is adopted: promoting fiber-to-the-village-and-home through government purchases of services, rewards, and subsidies; providing policy support for returning college graduates starting businesses, and offering free services such as technology sharing and entrepreneurial guidance. Market-oriented teams are introduced for building and operating Internet platforms.

At the town-level operations center in Shishan Town, the reporter clicked on the touchscreen to enter the comprehensive service platform, where five sub-platforms for industry, operations, services, management, and entrepreneurship each encompass multiple applications. "The platform design concept is town-village interconnection and precision services." Xu Zhenyu, head of Hainan Zhonghai Wangnong Technology Co., Ltd., opened the rural government affairs section. Under the rural poverty alleviation application, the family and production information of all poverty-stricken households in the town was fully visible. "Village-level information officers collect relevant information and upload it to the town-level platform. After big data processing, what poor households want to sell and how many guest rooms they can provide can be matched with e-commerce demand, making targeted poverty alleviation more precise."

At the Industrial Internet Service Center in Huiwen Town, Wenchang, the over 400 sq m two-story hall is divided into functional areas including exhibition booths for Buddhist bead processing enterprises, a tourism consultation area, "one-stop rural e-commerce services," and e-commerce training. Since opening on December 18 last year, 28 enterprises have already moved in. At the counter of the China Post express collection point, staff member Xiao Huang told the reporter that when merchants complete electronic transactions at the service center, they immediately collect the packages. Express fees start at 5 yuan within the province and 8 yuan outside the province, and it only takes two to three days to reach Beijing.

Although the construction of Internet agriculture towns has not been long, signs of deep integration have already emerged.

Agricultural product production and marketing methods are beginning to move toward brand marketing and "futures" trading. Shishan's black beans were previously sold in burlap sacks, fetching only 7 or 8 yuan per jin; now, through e-commerce team planning and promotion with a unified brand, they can sell for 50 yuan per jin. Hong Yiqian values "production determined by sales" even more. At the Hainan Farmers' Entrepreneurship and Innovation Conference last November, their volcanic Dendrobium futures sold 150,000 jin in one minute. "We don't need to worry about growing it and not being able to sell it."

The development methods of characteristic industries are moving toward standardization and sharing. "Huiwen Buddhist beads are in the process of establishing grade standards, and our standardized factory has already been built," said Zeng Xiaohong, noting that the development potential of the industry will be better after standardization. Shishan Town has established an Internet agriculture industry alliance, where leading enterprises, associations, and cooperatives within its jurisdiction use the Internet platform to integrate agricultural products and warehousing and logistics resources, sharing information and resources.

The group effect of entrepreneurship and innovation is becoming prominent. Wang Liquan, an information officer at the village-level service center of Meishe Village, Shishan Town, is a returning college graduate who uses his professional expertise to provide villagers with services such as buying and selling on their behalf and bill payments, earning a monthly income of over 3,500 yuan. Wang Jie, a "returning maker" in Sanqing Village, Shishan Town, runs a WeChat business and leads villagers in developing leisure agriculture, with monthly turnover reaching 150,000 yuan. According to statistics, more than 30 enterprises in Shishan Town alone are participating in the Internet town, and over a hundred college graduates have returned to start businesses.