IT Guy Gives Up High Salary to Help Baoji Farmers Sell Radishes

Photo: Xin Yongfei

For young people, is it better to choose a high-paying job in a big city, or to return to their hometown to work in agriculture? This question is not hard to answer. However, after working in Shenzhen for 10 years, Xin Yongfei resolutely gave up his high-paying job and returned to Baoji, Shaanxi, to focus on helping local farmers buy and sell fruits and vegetables. His business is thriving. What is the story behind this?

In 2005, Xin Yongfei went to Shenzhen to make a living right after finishing his studies. He worked in circuit board test program development and stress testing, making him one of the "code farmers" in the IT world. After more than 10 years of honing his skills, Xin Yongfei became a professional in this field, shouldering ever greater responsibilities and seeing his income rise steadily.

However, the wandering feeling of years spent away from home never made him happy. He missed the beauty of his hometown all the time, until one day he decided to make a change. "I didn't want to keep being a code farmer. I just wanted to be closer to my parents, and I really hoped to do something to help the people back home." Xin Yongfei told reporters that the broad vision he gained from years of working outside, as well as his project management experience as a code farmer, might be able to help the people of his hometown.

In March 2015, Xin Yongfei formally resigned from the IT job he excelled at, packed his bags, and returned to Baoji. The atmosphere of his hometown made him feel warm and fulfilled. Baoji is one of Shaanxi's cities with a population of over one million, but its local agricultural development level is not advanced, and there is still a big gap compared with places such as Shandong, Henan, and Guangdong. Xin Yongfei decided to start a new business in the agricultural industry he was familiar with.

The first thing Xiao Xin did after returning home was to survey and familiarize himself with the local agricultural situation. Baoji has a very rich variety of agricultural products, abundantly producing high-quality peaches, watermelons, strawberries, and cherries, as well as various vegetables, honey, free-range chickens, and more. Watermelons especially, at the summer peak, shipped as much as 1 million jin per day.

After gaining a completely clear understanding of the local agricultural product supply channels, Xin Yongfei decided to start as an agricultural product broker (agent). The specific work was to find buyers nationwide and help local farmers sell fruits and vegetables. These buyers included owners of wholesale markets in various places, traders, and various types of food processing enterprises.

Unlike traditional old brokers, Xin Yongfei had a sharper sense for internet channels and believed more firmly in the power of the internet. In October of this year, after comparing a series of internet channels, Xin Yongfei found a bulk agricultural product trading app called "Yimutian" and tried posting some agricultural product information on it. Soon, Xiao Xin received inquiry calls from buyers. In the first month, he helped local farmers sell more than 20 tons of radishes.

Xin Yongfei quickly realized that the internet might also be the best channel to thoroughly solve the problems of agricultural products being "hard to sell" and "unable to fetch a good price." This year, Baoji happened to encounter a vegetable sales slump. "Many farmers' vegetables, because they could not find buyers, just had to rot in the fields. Many customers from the south need to purchase these vegetables, but they don't know that Baoji's vegetables are so cheap, and Baoji's farmers also don't know the purchasing needs of southern customers. This is the problem of information asymmetry, and Yimutian can exactly solve this problem of information asymmetry," Xin Yongfei told reporters.

Xin Yongfei gave an example: this year, when Baoji cauliflower was at its cheapest, it was 1 mao per jin. A mu of land producing 3,000 jin would sell for only 300 yuan. If you hired people, the labor cost alone would be more than 300 yuan. Radishes this year could sell for at most 1 mao, and if they couldn't make money, they could only rot in the fields. "In the past, without internet platforms like Yimutian, most farmers in the country could only rely on brokers they had known before to move goods, and could only passively wait for people to come buy. If there was a bumper harvest year and fewer buyers came, prices would quickly drop and lead to a sales slump."

Xin Yongfei is applying to become a contracted supplier for Yimutian in order to gain more traffic and buyer attention. "I help farmers post products online. If there is any problem with the farmers' products, you can deduct my deposit to compensate the buyers. Because I have a good relationship and trust with the farmers, I also won't let the farmers arbitrarily raise prices." Xin Yongfei also has a bigger idea: to become the spokesperson for "Yimutian" in Baoji. On one hand, he can help Yimutian promote the app and teach farmers how to promote themselves online. On the other hand, he can also integrate Baoji's agricultural product supply to help buyers more easily find better agricultural products.

Xin Yongfei is also exploring new internet channels such as Taobao, Alibaba, and WeChat marketing. Although these channels do not move large volumes, Xiao Xin believes they still need to be learned. In his words, "The internet is the possibility of connecting everything. Only when farmers learn the internet can they gain strong survival ability. This is also where the value lies for our generation of young people returning home to start businesses and help our hometown."