To comprehensively push forwardIt is an important task of building an agricultural power in the new era. In 2024, the No.1 Document of the Central Committee first proposed "implementing the high-quality development project of rural e-commerce", clearly promoting the construction of county-level e-commerce live broadcast bases and developing rural local products online sales.
When direct e-commerce is combined with agriculture as a new marketing method, it can not only promote the structural reform of agricultural supply side, but also provide an important impetus for the development of rural economy. With the improvement of rural network coverage and infrastructure construction, rural e-commerce has developed rapidly.Online sales have increased. The data shows that in 2023, the rural online retail sales reached 2.49 trillion yuan, and the online retail sales reached 0.59 trillion yuan.
Take Xuwen pineapple as an example,Platform data shows that in the past year, Xuwen pineapple online sales increased by 60% year-on-year. From the purchase area, Zhejiang surpassed Guangdong to become the largest province of Xuwen pineapple consumption, followed by Jiangsu, Sichuan and Shanghai, and entered the top five.
In late February, this year’s first Xuwen pineapple was listed first. It is understood that the planting area of Xuwen pineapple this year is about 350,000 mu, with an annual output of about 700,000 tons, accounting for nearly 15% of the listed pineapples. The price of fresh fruit is stable at 0.8-1 yuan/kg, and the purchase price of large pineapples can reach 1.2 yuan/kg.
Luo Hongxia, secretary of Xuwen County Party Committee, fully affirmed the live broadcast of helping agriculture promoted by the cooperation of the government, platform and media at the recent 2024 "Call for Global Eating Xuwen Pineapple" event. Driven by the live broadcast, it set off a nationwide wave of live broadcast to help agriculture, and the "Xuwen Model" became the most popular new development model of agricultural e-commerce in that year.
From "unsalable fruit" to "rich fruit"
In 2023, China’s rural e-commerce has entered a new stage of high-quality development. In fact, as early as the epidemic in 2020, the live broadcast of helping farmers has become popular all over the network, and Xuwen pineapple is a good example.
In February 2020, it was the harvest season of Xuwen pineapple, but it caught up with the epidemic. The opening of the county magistrate’s live broadcast ignited Xu Wen’s vitality and vitality.
At that time, the live broadcast data showed that it attracted more than 300,000 netizens’ attention in just half an hour, while all 30,000 pieces of pineapples were originally sold out in the two-hour online activity, and 20,000 pieces of goods were urgently transferred in the live broadcast room, which finally drove the sales of pineapples to nearly 300,000 Jin. After the live broadcast, local farmers’ shops in xuwen county accumulated 30,000 fans overnight and sold 51,000 pieces of pineapples in the past 20 days.
This live broadcast is a beneficial practice for Xuwen local government to lead fruit farmers to try the new path of online agricultural goods. Xuwen pineapple’s online uplink experiment is called "Xuwen mode", which is the beginning of local people’s spontaneous agricultural e-commerce.
"In the past, in the offline market, big fruits sold well, but small and medium-sized fruits were often only sold to canneries or even rotted in the ground; Nowadays, with the help of the e-commerce platform, both Zhongguo and Daguo have a broader market, and the overall output value has increased by 10%. " Some locals told reporters. In 2020-2022, Xuwen pineapple ushered in a high-light moment, and the field purchase price rose instead of falling. At the peak, it broke through 3 yuan/Jin, setting a sales record.
"The live broadcast of the county magistrate is a beneficial practice for Xu Wen to lead fruit farmers to try the new path of agricultural products on the Internet. The successful landing of this’ experiment’ also benefited from the creation and establishment of a new model of Guangdong’s’ 12221′ market system. " The person in charge of the relevant business said.
In 2019, in order to implement the marketing work of Xuwen pineapple brand building, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs set up a "12221" special working group and put forward a "12221" market system, that is, to build "one" agricultural product., set up a "2" team of buyers in sales areas and cultivate brokers in production areas, expand the "2" big market in sales areas and production areas, plan the "2" activities of buyers entering production areas and agricultural products entering big markets, and realize the "1" goals of brand building, sales promotion, market guidance, variety improvement and farmers getting rich.
It is reported that by August 2021, 15 town-level e-commerce service and logistics distribution service stations and 140 village-level e-commerce and logistics distribution service stations have been built in xuwen county, and the construction rate of administrative villages has reached over 70%, and more than 50% of village e-commerce service stations have realized online sales of agricultural products or local specialty foods; The broadband network coverage rate of administrative villages (village committees) is 100%, and the broadband network utilization rate of farmers is over 95%.
This year’s newly released No.1 Document of the Central Committee clearly proposes to implement the high-quality development project of rural e-commerce, promote the construction of county-level e-commerce live broadcast bases, and develop the online sales of rural local products. Xuwen county is also vigorously promoting live e-commerce sales, striving to become "the first county of live e-commerce in China", and e-commerce, digitalization and internationalization will become the key words for the next stage.
It is reported that about 316 tons of pineapples have been exported to Russia, Kyrgyzstan, North Korea and other countries this year, of which North Korea is exporting for the first time.
Agricultural digital assistance
Rural e-commerce provides strong support by providing new sales channels, increasing farmers’ income, enhancing agricultural brand value and promoting agricultural digital transformation.
In recent years, the No.1 Document of the Central Committee mentioned agricultural e-commerce many times, emphasizing its important role in rural revitalization. In 2022, the No.1 Document of the Central Committee proposed to implement the project of "prospering agriculture through several businesses", promote e-commerce into the countryside, and promote the standardized and healthy development of live delivery of agricultural and sideline products; In 2023, the No.1 Document of the Central Committee proposed to carry out in-depth the project of "developing agriculture by using a number of merchants" and "internet plus" agricultural products leaving the village and entering the city, and encourage the development of agricultural products such as direct e-commerce mining and customized production.
This year, the No.1 Document of the Central Committee put forward "Implementing the High-quality Development Project of Rural E-commerce" for the first time. Wang Peng, a researcher at Beijing Academy of Social Sciences and executive director of the Institute of Data Capitalization, believes that the development of rural e-commerce in China has entered a new stage of high-quality development, from the initial express delivery to the countryside, to the upward movement of agricultural products, and then to digital development. The development model of rural e-commerce is becoming more diversified, and the policy guidance is gradually improving.
Among them, the participation of e-commerce platform is indispensable. In the previousAt the meeting, Pinduoduo CEO Chen Lei repeatedly stressed that he would "continuously increase investment" in the fields of agriculture and manufacturing in the future. The data shows that in 2020 alone, it launched a total of more than 240 live broadcasts to help farmers, covering 29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government.
However, it should be noted that there are still problems in the current journey of agricultural digitalization in China.The Special Study on Agricultural Digitalization in Internet Industry shows that the penetration rate of agricultural digitalization in China is low. From the domestic comparison, the digitization rate of the primary industry (agriculture) in China is far lower than that of the secondary industry and the tertiary industry. In 2020,The penetration rate in the tertiary industry has exceeded 40%, but the penetration rate in agriculture is only 8.9%.
In the eyes of the industry, the main challenges faced by rural e-commerce include the imperfect supply chain system, the need to improve the quality of e-commerce services, the urgent need to improve the logistics distribution system, the shortage of professionals, the lack of coordination among various subjects and the imbalance of regional development. These problems restrict the further development of rural e-commerce, and need to be solved by measures such as policy support, infrastructure construction, personnel training and innovation drive.
For China agriculture and many e-commerce platforms, there is still a long way to go.