"In cities and villages around the world, e-commerce plays an important role in promoting consumption, employment, entrepreneurship, and poverty alleviation. As the world's largest developing country, China can provide lessons for other developing countries' agricultural digital transformation." Recently, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (hereinafter referred to as "FAO") and Zhejiang University jointly wrote the "Digital Agriculture Report: China's Rural E-commerce Development Experience" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") to the world.
The "Report" summarizes the development history, main models, and typical cases of China's e-commerce, especially rural e-commerce, in all aspects and from multiple perspectives. Digital applications represented by rural e-commerce are playing an active role in the revitalization of China's rural areas.
The picture shows the cover of "Digital Agriculture Report: China's Rural E-commerce Development Experience"
It is reported that this report is the first digital agriculture report released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Qu Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, pointed out in the preface of the "Report" that the report explored the new business of rural e-commerce to create agricultural economy, bringing agricultural producers, rural entrepreneurs and urban consumers closer together, thereby widely increasing farmers’ income. , Reduce poverty.
With the support of the government and the active participation of platform companies, innovative business models such as e-commerce provide a reference for the poverty alleviation of the world's poor and sustainable rural development.
According to the "Report", in recent years, with the encouragement and support of the government, the level of rural infrastructure in China has been steadily improved, providing a prerequisite for the continuous innovation of platform e-commerce. The traditional e-commerce model represented by Alibaba, JD.com, and Suning revolves around " The search scene of "people looking for goods" makes agricultural products efficiently link urban consumers.
As "socializing" has become a new feature of urban and rural residents' access to the Internet, the new e-commerce model represented by Pinduoduo is quietly creating a new pattern of rural production and consumption.
The main drafter of the "Report", Professor Wei Longbao from the Institute of Food Economics and Agricultural Business Management of Zhejiang University believes that rural e-commerce has promoted the structural reform of the agricultural supply side and has become the "leader" in the development of agricultural and rural economics.
"Fighting mode" becomes a new engine for rural e-commerce
The "Report" shows that China's rural online retail sales and agricultural product online sales are on an upward trend year by year. The development of rural e-commerce has released huge potential for rural people to participate in production and consumption.
In China, the circulation of primary agricultural products is facing practical problems such as fragility, non-standards, small-scale planting, and inaccessible information. Rural e-commerce is rapidly iterating and upgrading the model to break many barriers to the upward movement of agricultural products.
Taking Pinduoduo as an example, the technical integration of "social + algorithm" matches information to achieve "goods looking for people". At the same time, consumers can also share information on high-quality agricultural products through the single-order model, which effectively improves the scale and efficiency of agricultural products. , Enabling agricultural products scattered in various regions of the country to break through the restrictions of the traditional circulation mode and directly connect to the national market.
The "Report" analyzes that under the traditional e-commerce model, the relationship between sellers and consumers is based on transactions.
At present, under the development of new business formats such as social e-commerce and live e-commerce in China, agricultural products trading has become an event that can happen anytime and anywhere. The integration of social behavior and shopping behavior is a significant feature of the current rural e-commerce model innovation.
In the past, farmers sold oranges in baskets, and sold at a load. Now, with the help of the model of "purchasing production areas and direct delivery", they are sold in trucks and trucks to all parts of the country.
The report pointed out that rural e-commerce has broken the restrictions on the circulation and sale of agricultural products and extended the value chain of agricultural products.
At the same time, with the help of modern logistics systems, the sale of agricultural products has been scaled up, thereby increasing rural per capita income and narrowing the gap between urban and rural areas.
As a new engine of the rural economy, the blossoming of rural e-commerce has also brought practical impact on many aspects of China’s rural ecology. Traditional farmers have turned into new farmers with comprehensive skills such as scientific planting and e-commerce operations with the help of new e-commerce tools. Young people choose to return to their hometowns to start businesses; with the help of new e-commerce tools, farmers have more access to information and data than before, which effectively improves agricultural production efficiency and earns more income; and some former "poor areas" promote the upward trend of agricultural products , Create a landmark agricultural product brand as a means, with the support of science and technology to the countryside and policy support, smoothly get rid of poverty and find a new way for the development of advantageous industries.
Pinduoduo's "Agricultural Land Cloud Fighting" model of helping farmers attracts attention
The "Report" believes that the experience of China's rural areas shows that digital technology can develop rapidly in rural areas of developing countries and become a tool for rural revitalization and poverty alleviation.
The "Report" also specifically mentioned the case of Gansu Longnan to increase farmers' income through e-commerce.
Longnan is located at the junction of the three provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, and Sichuan. The development of e-commerce has become the main economic strategy of the region early on, and it has been awarded the title of "National E-commerce Poverty Alleviation Demonstration City" for three consecutive years.
In 2020, Cui Jingyu, the mayor of Longnan at the time, walked into the live broadcast room of the new e-commerce platform Pinduoduo and appeared as a "cargo anchor" to promote Longnan Astragalus and other characteristic traditional Chinese medicine products to online consumers.
With the advancement of technology, China's major e-commerce platforms are applying agricultural technology and artificial intelligence to rural e-commerce and continue to innovate, so that they can efficiently promote the upward trend of agricultural products and help rural revitalization.
The "Report" pointed out that traditional e-commerce platforms represented by Alibaba and JD.com have played an active role in helping industrial products go to the countryside, agricultural products entering cities, promoting the flow of factors, and helping rural development, while the new e-commerce platforms represented by Pinduoduo have played an active role. The key to the high-quality development of the rural economy has been found by reforming the supply chain of agricultural products and promoting the upward movement of agricultural products.
The "Report" also specifically introduced Pinduoduo's "Farmland Cloud Pinching" model.
It is understood that "Agricultural Land Cloud Fight" is based on pioneering distributed artificial intelligence technology, which enables the precise matching of dispersed consumer demand and dispersed agricultural product supply in the cloud, and is reshaping the supply chain of agricultural products.
The report concluded that the sustainable development of rural e-commerce will face many opportunities and challenges in the future, such as the lack of standardization and quality traceability of agricultural products, and the upgrading of digital infrastructure. This still requires close collaboration between the government, enterprises, and farmers.
In the context of China's rural revitalization, the "engine" of rural e-commerce will continue to activate the rural economy and enrich the rural business.
In addition, with the advancement of digital technology, the potential for rural economic, social, and environmental benefits will continue to be released.