Selling Local Specialties Online, Computer Plus Hoe Becomes Farmers' New Choice
A man who has just finished picking vegetables dives into a room equipped with a computer, while a woman holding a child nimbly slides the mouse - everything is changing. Over the past few days, reporters went deep into the villages of Sujiatun and observed: farmers are "putting" their own green, pollution-free agricultural products such as dates, walnuts, millet and fresh vegetables onto the Internet for sale.
The farmers skillfully log onto the Farmers' Information Network, Taobao... and haggle with buyers from Beijing, Henan and Guangzhou.
Agricultural product brokers go online to sell
"In the past I helped my fellow villagers sell agricultural products to out-of-town brokers, and I found that after the transaction they would pass through several hands. A jin of hazelnuts is bought from farmers for 6 yuan, and after three or four rounds of markups, it finally reaches consumers at more than 20 yuan."
- Farmer broker He Qinghui
On November 10, the reporter met farmer broker He Qinghui in Hongling Town, Sujiatun District. He was the earliest local farmer to sell agricultural products online. "Many city people now advocate eating coarse grains, so I deliberately went to learn computer knowledge and web page design, and sell these things that are rare in the city." He took photos of the walnuts, millet and red dates at home and put them online.
These plump, green and natural agricultural products quickly attracted people's attention. After the first deal was completed, He Qinghui began carrying a bag and going from household to household, seeing whose walnuts were freshly harvested this year and whose red dates were large and of high quality.
Can you make money just by sitting at home and going online? He Qinghui said that he used the Internet to inquire and publish more than 1,000 pieces of various information for surrounding farmers, helping villagers sell more than 10 varieties of agricultural and sideline products such as cucumbers and lettuce, with annual sales of more than 8 million yuan. The products were sold nearby to Beijing, Henan, Guangzhou and other places, and as far away as South Korea and Russia.
30,000 farmers earn their living from the "Internet"
"Only by making the volume bigger can online sales really take off. In winter, a jin of garlic sprouts used to be bought by brokers for less than 2 yuan; now, by taking orders online from a Beijing vegetable supermarket, it can sell for more than 3 yuan at once."
- Local farmer grower
Sujiatun spent more than 5 million yuan to build a four-level agricultural electronic information service network covering the district, township, village and household levels, forming a network that vertically can connect upward to the Ministry of Agriculture, provincial and municipal competent departments, and downward to all townships, villages and households in the district; horizontally it can connect to the Internet and to agricultural information networks in all provinces, cities and districts. The district has "pushed" more than 700 large planting and breeding households, more than 300 agricultural product brokers, more than 220 agricultural enterprises and more than 20 specialty villages onto the Internet. At present, the district uses the agricultural information service platform to directly serve more than 30,000 rural users.
In many places in the district's townships, shops selling computers have opened. Moreover, surrounding carton factories, logistics companies and others have also become "full to the brim." As the scale of business expands, more greenhouses using straw technology have also appeared.
Farmers said that now children from Hongling Town who attend university elsewhere have also opened online stores in their dormitories to help their parents sell vegetables. The children handle taking orders, and the goods are shipped locally by their parents.
Children help parents with online group buying
"In the past, children in the town played games and shopped in internet cafes; now many children help their parents buy some cheap agricultural production materials through online group buying, just so they can work together to make their own agricultural product production and sales bigger and stronger."
- Local farmer parent
In Dengjiagou Village, Baiqingzhai Township, the reporter found a very interesting phenomenon: the owners of farmhouse courtyards here not only use the telephone to order meals, but also post information about their own food on food websites; the shop owners also do a side business in mountain goods. Farmers say this kind of life kills three birds with one stone: while opening an online store to sell agricultural products, they can take care of business, and the crops in the fields are not neglected either, with annual net income reaching 50,000 to 60,000 yuan. More importantly, they can also live with their families.
At noon on November 9, in Hongling Town, more than a dozen trucks began shuttling along the field paths, carrying out busy loading and shipping operations. In a farmhouse courtyard, the reporter saw a woman holding a child chatting with a buyer by video online.
"Farmers should not only engage in high-quality planting, but also learn to promote their own agricultural products." This "computer + hoe" model seeks to connect the most advanced Internet with the most primitive local specialties, opening the door to wealth.
According to news from the Shenyang Municipal Agricultural Commission, at present the total number of farmers in the city who are directly online and indirectly enjoy online services exceeds 100,000, with annual online transaction volume reaching 200-300 million yuan.