Attract agricultural "core" and help cultivate "income-increasing fields"

China Economic Herald and China Development Network News reporter Pi Zehong reported that the spring in April is good, and it is time to prepare for farming. In Shibing County, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture in Guizhou Province, the fields are a busy scene.

At the beginning of April, the project team of Benlai Life Shi Bing helped the project team to visit Shi Bing again during the critical period of rice seedling raising, and organized farmers in all villages in the county to participate in the training of rice experts in the Diba Village Committee. "The planting area of the 'Yuzhenxiang' rice we introduced last year is expected to increase to 500 acres this year. As the saying goes, 'the seedlings are half of the grain', so you can rest assured when you come to see for yourself. The project leader said.

In March 2023, the Benlai Life team coordinated and led the trial planting of new rice varieties in the local area, and after a production season, the quality and yield performance of Yuzhenxiang rice were surprising.

In 2024, China Jianyin Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "China Jianyin") and Xinhua Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xinhua Insurance") will enter a new stage of industrial assistance to Shibing County. "This year, our goal is to achieve 'Wuchang rice flowers in the north and Shi Bingyu needle fragrance in the south'. It is planned to allow more farmers to participate in the cultivation of high-quality rice and master the planting technology of high-quality rice jade needle incense. In addition, local farmers' habits of planting rice without drying the fields and planting rice at too wide spacing will also be corrected this year. The project leader said.

The success of this project is the success of the five-party linkage model of "government + assistance institutions + e-commerce + scientific research institutions + farmers" that originally lived in industrial assistance. Among them, through the empowerment of the whole industry chain, Benlai Life directly drives the progress of farmers' planting and breeding concepts and technological upgrading, and creates more market-competitive and advantageous commodities from scientific management and commercialization improvement, which greatly drives farmers' sustainable income increase.

This April, the work of living in the production area of Shi Bing was in full swing, and the marketization of Shi Bing's rice products in the new year has also been launched. In this season full of vitality, looking back at the spring, summer, autumn and winter that Shi Bing has walked through, planting the seeds of hope for the new season of rice fields.

Shibing County is located in the central and eastern part of Guizhou Province, is a low-latitude and high-altitude area, heat and rain are abundant, the temperature in August is maintained between 20-28 °C, rain and heat at the same time, which is conducive to the accumulation of nutrients in the rice filling period, and the climatic conditions are very suitable for planting high-quality rice. And the ecological environment is good, the water, soil, air is high-quality and pollution-free, the soil is rich in trace elements such as selenium and zinc, and the rice produced by planting is of good quality and good taste.

In March 2023, the Benlai Life team came to Shibing County again to cooperate with China Construction Investment and Xinhua Insurance to carry out the quality upgrading of Shibing's rice products.

Originally, based on the natural resource endowment of Shibing County, and fully combined with the needs of the market, according to local policies, put forward the plan of planting new varieties and cultivating Shibing's characteristic rice products, and set up the "Shibing County High-quality Rice Experimental Planting Base", and introduced two excellent rice varieties of "Yuzhenxiang" rice and "Xiangzhuxiang" silk miao rice.

In 2018 and 2019, it won the gold medal of the first and second national high-quality rice varieties taste quality evaluation (indica rice) for two consecutive times, and in 2020, the third national high-quality rice variety taste quality evaluation control variety, which was praised by Academician Yuan Longping as "super Taimi". Developed by the Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the "Xiangzhuxiang" silk miao rice has a tasting taste score of 91.4-92.0 points, and was rated as one of the top ten gold medal varieties of the first Guangdong International Famous Rice (Indica Rice) in 2020.

"These two rice varieties have their own characteristics, and after expert demonstration, I believe that they are the agricultural 'core' that can 'fly' Shibing' the rice industry. The project leader said.

With good rice seeds, management and technology must also keep up. Dr. Li Jianwu, a rice expert from the Rice Research Institute of the Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Huangpu Research Institute of Longping Agricultural Science and Technology, was invited to Shi Bing to guide the key points of the whole process of planting and management of 137 farmers, laying the foundation for a bumper harvest in the experimental field.

The positive impact of advanced technology and ideas goes far beyond the bumper harvest of a site. There is an obvious gap between the standardized planting and standardized management of the experimental field and the growth of rice in the general paddy field, which is seen and remembered by the local growers, which has led to the improvement of the local planting level.

After half a year's work and efforts, the yield of "Yuzhenxiang" rice per mu in Shibing County has reached 1,100 catties, far exceeding the yield of 800 catties per mu in Hunan, and far exceeding the average yield of 866 catties per mu of local rice in Shibing, with an increase rate of more than 38%. The yield per mu of "Xiangzhu fragrant silk seedlings" rice also reached 800 catties, achieving the expected goal.

"Shibing has excellent resource endowment, but there are many gaps between the rice yield and product popularity of Shibing County and well-known producing areas such as Wuchang. Starting from the fundamentals, we will cultivate characteristic products with new varieties with market potential and promote the quality and efficiency of Shibing's rice industry. "The expert summed up the life goods.

It is reported that the purchase price of new varieties of rice harvested by farmers in the base has increased by nearly 40% compared with the past, which has brought tangible benefits to farmers.

Make efforts up and down to gather platform resources to build market-oriented channels

The new rice varieties give Shibing rice products the characteristics of the key to winning the market competition, and also make them have the premise of brand premium.

In the whole industry chain plan created for Shi Bing's rice products, it is more important to transform from rice products to commodities that are more suitable for the first-line consumer market. Experts in life commodities pointed out that with the upgrading of food consumption quality, prepackaged rice products have grown rapidly, accounting for more than half of the market. Factors such as origin and brand affect consumers' purchase decisions.

Combining the characteristics of the two characteristic products, Benlai Life has made overall design from the aspects of natural advantages and national characteristics of the origin, established the positioning of high-quality rice products on the Guizhou Plateau, helped build a public brand of "Shibing Rice" regional agricultural products, and empowered Shibing rice industry to become a characteristic leading industry.

For example, the platform has redesigned the trademark and packaging bags of rice products to meet the needs of first-line consumers. Focusing on the upgraded products, Benlai Life has also formulated a detailed online brand marketing and promotion plan. These measures not only successfully brought Shi Bing's rice products into the consumer market in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but also drove the commercialization of Shi Bing's other agricultural products.

In order to further enhance the competitiveness of commodities, Benlai Life also provided Shibing rice with whole-process quality control system support from the origin to the table. In the early stage of rice planting, the platform entrusted the Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences to test the heavy metal content in the soil of five trial planting natural villages in Shibing County to ensure that the planting environment is safe and secure. After the paddy is harvested, the platform entrusts SGS to conduct testing, which provides a strong quality guarantee for the safety and traceability of the products.

In order for good products to go out of the mountains, it is also necessary to solve the basic problem of logistics costs. In terms of logistics integration, Benlai Life adopts the method of centralized harvesting and unified warehousing, and sends products from Shibing County, Guizhou Province to Benlai's central warehouses in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Wuhan, which solves the pain points of slow delivery time and high cost in the production area, and greatly improves the consumer experience.

"With the support of lean logistics management and a nationwide distribution network, Shibing's rice products are closer to consumers. Whether it is the centralized procurement of B-end enterprises or the C-end household users, more efficient fulfillment services make Shibing's rice products more competitive than other 'niche' rice products. The person in charge of life logistics pointed out.

In the beautiful spring, Shi Bing's fertile rice fields are ready to go, and farmers are also looking forward to the arrival of the sowing season. Here, the new story brought by a grain of rice will definitely be continued with more surprises.