E-commerce platforms help farmers in impoverished counties start businesses in the "Great Northern Wilderness"

Hu Yanping, head of the agricultural e-commerce brand "Vegetarian Cat" in Tazicheng Township, Tailai County, displays products (photographed on January 10).

In Tazicheng Township, Tailai County, Heilongjiang, local villagers package millet and miscellaneous grains in the processing workshop of the e-commerce brand "Vegetarian Cat" (photographed on January 10).

Lyu Kexin, a young person from Tazicheng Township, Tailai County, does online sales promotion in the "Vegetarian Cat" office (photographed on January 10).

Lyu Kexin is 25 years old this year. She once studied and worked elsewhere. In 2015, she returned from Dalian, Liaoning, to her hometown of Tazi Township, Tailai County, and joined "Vegetarian Cat" as a sales and customer service specialist.

In Tazicheng Township, Tailai County, a cat squats in the grain storage warehouse of the e-commerce brand "Vegetarian Cat" (photographed on January 10).

Hu Yanping said that rats often appear in the granary. To avoid possible contamination of grain when using rat poison to kill rats, the company keeps six or seven cats as "guards."

Sun Ligang, a villager from Hexi Village, Tazicheng Township, Tailai County, displays peanuts harvested from his own family (photographed on January 10).

Sun Ligang's family has more than 100 mu of land, of which more than 70 mu is under advance purchase contracts signed with e-commerce enterprises and planted according to requirements.

At the product display area of the Qiqihar "Black Soil · Green Agriculture" 2016 "Internet + Agriculture" Industry Forum, an attendee looks at local agricultural products (photographed on January 11).

Tailai County, Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang, is a national-level impoverished county. Because of its remote location, few sales channels and low product added value, local farmers, though surrounded by fertile black soil, cannot sell the grain they grow at a good price. In early 2015, the Tailai County government organized a group of farmers from the county to visit agricultural e-commerce bases elsewhere. This trip greatly inspired Hu Yanping, a villager from Tazicheng Township, Tailai County, who had been engaged in grain purchasing and sales for more than 20 years: it turned out agricultural products could also be sold this way! After some preparation, in May 2015, "Vegetarian Cat," the first self-owned brand agricultural products flagship store in Tazicheng Township run by Hu Yanping, launched on Tmall, mainly selling local rice and miscellaneous grains. "At the beginning, because brand awareness was insufficient and promotion costs were high, we lost 600,000 in the first more than 4 months," Hu Yanping said. But after getting through the initial difficulties, the advantages of the internet gradually emerged. By the beginning of this year, this agricultural e-commerce enterprise rooted in a small town in Heilongjiang had received about 100,000 orders in less than a year, and sales had reached 4 million yuan. "Our store ranked as high as 15th in the same industry on Tmall," Hu Yanping said proudly. Because sales prospects looked good, Hu Yanping and large grain-growing households in the township began contract farming: farmers plant grain according to the e-commerce company's plan, and the company promises to purchase all of it at a price higher than the market. More than 40 villagers in the village became employees of this e-commerce enterprise. Some young people who "can type and use WeChat" sat down in the company's office and became sales specialists and customer service specialists. Hu Yanping's "Vegetarian Cat" is only one of the agricultural product brands that have emerged from the "Great Northern Wilderness" through e-commerce. In early 2015, Qiqihar City proposed a development approach for the green organic food industry that includes elements such as agricultural IoT, leading brand enterprises, product quality testing systems, modern storage facilities and electronic marketing platforms. On January 11, 2016, the "Northeast Black Soil" agricultural products trading platform was launched in Qiqihar. As a traditional agricultural city, Qiqihar is working hard to promote more agricultural products from the "Great Northern Wilderness" to the whole country through the internet.