Let more farmers take the e-commerce express

Source: People's Daily - People's Daily

Rural e-commerce is not simply to move agricultural products to the Internet, it is important to build a high-quality agricultural products industry chain and supply chain through mechanism innovation, to achieve product value-added, industrial efficiency, farmers to increase income

Live broadcasting has become a new agricultural work, and mobile phones have become new agricultural tools. Long Yanping, a farmer in Luping Village, Taiping Town, Hefeng County, Hubei Province, walked into the live broadcast room every morning, and in the camera, tea, honey and other characteristic agricultural products were dazzling, and the screen "liked" brush screen. Hitching a ride on the rural e-commerce express, Long Yanping can sell thousands of orders of more than 80 kinds of characteristic agricultural products a day, driving more than 2,000 farmers in the surrounding areas to become rich.

Like Long Yanping, more and more farmers are integrating into rural e-commerce. A network cable connects urban and rural areas, allowing scattered small farmers to dock with large markets, and smoothing the industrial chain from the field to the table. As of the end of last year, the number of rural online merchants (stores) in the country reached 15.205 million, driving 36 million rural local entrepreneurship and employment, and the online retail sales of agricultural products in the first half of this year maintained double-digit growth. Rural e-commerce has become a new way for farmers to get rich, and plays an important role in promoting the revitalization of rural industries and smoothing the urban and rural economic cycle.

More and more farmers are embracing the Internet, looking at the advantages of e-commerce, less intermediate links, larger market space, wider sales channels, and many featured products with the help of e-commerce platforms, out of the mountains, to the whole country. At the same time, we must also see that in the face of the new Internet platform, some farmers' skills cannot keep up, some agricultural products have weak competitiveness in the market, and some e-commerce has attracted traffic but no sales increase. How to better unite rural e-commerce with farmers and rich peasants is a new issue facing modern agriculture.

Let more farmers take the rural e-commerce express train, and we must effectively make up for the shortcomings of the foundation. In recent years, the increasingly convenient transportation facilities and increasingly perfect communication networks in rural areas have provided solid support for the development of e-commerce. However, there are also phenomena such as the lag in the construction of the "last mile" of the logistics network, the high cost of express delivery, and the imperfect cold chain infrastructure. All localities should concentrate their efforts on making up for their weaknesses. While improving the "hardware", it is also necessary to optimize the "soft environment", strengthen the supervision of malicious low-price competition, crack down on counterfeit and shoddy behavior, create a fair and clear market environment, promote the high-quality development of the rural e-commerce industry, and make rural e-commerce from "a momentary fire" to "always on fire".

To let more farmers take the rural e-commerce express train, it is necessary to establish a close interest connection mechanism. Rural e-commerce is not simply to move agricultural products to the Internet, what is important is to build an industrial chain and supply chain of high-quality agricultural products through mechanism innovation. All localities should guide leading enterprises, cooperatives and other new business entities to lead peasant households to form a "community" with unified production standards and shared benefit distribution through the promotion of order agriculture, create a interlocking standardized industrial chain, promote the transformation of primary agricultural products into commodities, and achieve a win-win situation of product value-added, industrial efficiency, and farmers' income.

Let more farmers take the rural e-commerce express train, we should give full play to their enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and innovation. In recent years, the enthusiasm of farmers for e-commerce entrepreneurship has continued to rise, and many young people who are experts in breeding and returning to their hometowns have transformed into "experts in carrying goods". All localities should make greater efforts to support farmers' e-commerce entrepreneurship, provide them with accurate training and fine services, solve practical problems in terms of capital and land use, and build rural e-commerce into a hot land for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Speaking of a thousand, ten thousand, increasing peasants' incomes is the key. Let more farmers take the rural e-commerce express train, promote agriculture to become a promising industry, and farmers will become an attractive profession!

People's Daily (October 29, 2021, 18th edition)