Original title: These are the stars of the agricultural version of “Chinese Partners”! Source: Venture State

Editor's note: This article is from the WeChat account NetEase Technology (ID: tech_163). The author Xiaoyi is reprinted with permission from Chuangbang.

On February 25, the National Poverty Alleviation Summary and Commendation Conference was held in Beijing. The conference solemnly declared that China had achieved an overall victory in the fight against poverty and completed the difficult task of eradicating absolute poverty.

Under current standards, all 98.99 million rural poor people have been lifted out of poverty, and all 832 impoverished counties have taken their caps off. China has achieved historic achievements in agricultural and rural development.

After winning the fight against poverty, the next task is to comprehensively promote rural revitalization and accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas. This is a requirement for modernizing the country, and it is a top priority for social and economic development. To complete this task, it is necessary to promote the transformation and upgrading of agriculture and achieve improvements in production efficiency and economic benefits.

E-commerce is the best choice to increase conversion rates. However, the “China E-Commerce Report (2018)” shows that as of 2018,agricultural productsOnline retail sales reached 23.5 billion yuan, accounting for only 2.0% of the total agricultural output value in that year.

Agriculture is still far from the goal of modernization due to a lack of talent and technology, the two key resources. Attracting “new farmers” to make returning to their hometowns to start businesses a new trend

Any development is inseparable from human construction. Since the second half of the 20th century, the population, especially the young and middle-aged labor force, has continuously moved into urban clusters, and the urbanization process in China has accelerated markedly. Corresponding to this, the aging problem in rural areas is becoming more serious. According to the 3rd National Agricultural Survey, the proportion of agricultural production and management workers aged 55 and over reached 33.6% in 2016.

The more vibrant the city, the more people it can attract, the quieter the countryside, the easier it is to lose population. As a result, the balance continues to lean towards the urban side, causing the talent market to saturate, the industry threshold to rise, and competition to become more intense.

After achieving success in their studies, young people left the mountains and the Yellow Land, hoping to find more wealth and opportunities. However, what they are actually seeing now is probably a different scene, showing ambitions and realizing dreams. For most people, it's just an idealistic building in the sky.

Under these circumstances, the other end of the scale — the countryside — is beginning to outweigh demand. Modernizing rural agriculture requires new types of professionals who have received higher education and understand the Internet; on the contrary, they have a vast world to do. “Knowledge changes fate” is becoming more and more difficult to work in cities, yet in rural areas it is still a golden rule. However, few young people take the initiative to choose to return to their land.

How to guide young people back to their hometowns to build new villages? Pinduoduo's attempts are worth checking out. In 2015, the Pinduoduo platform proposed a “new farmer” system. Through rational distribution of benefits under the market mechanism, agriculture was turned into an ideal entrepreneurship track to gather talents.

In 2018, Pinduoduo also founded “Duoduo University” to establish two online and offline professional “Poverty Alleviation Product Upgrading and Internet Operation” course training channels. Previously, the “Duoduo University” offline courses had covered 21 provinces, nurtured more than 6,700 local students, and directly guided more than 3,900 stores.

According to the “2020 Report on the Status and Development of E-commerce Talents in Rural China” released by the Smart E-commerce Research Institute of China Agricultural University, “Pinduoduo is becoming the largest talent development platform in China and the Huangpu Military Academy for agricultural e-commerce.” “Blood transfusion” becomes “hematopoiesis” invigorates the autonomy of farmers to broadcast live broadcasts

With new farmers taking the lead, how to get native farmers to keep up with the pace is the next problem that needs to be solved urgently.

Some people have lived in rural areas for a long time and are used to the life of bowing their heads and transplanting seedlings. Their inherent values are conservative, and they are not compatible or even mentally opposed to new technology. There are also people who have seen the results achieved by the new farmers and are willing to try it out, but their ability to grasp it is limited, and they have enough energy. To achieve complete victory in the fight against poverty, we must not only alleviate poverty, but also support wisdom, and change “blood transfusion” to “hematopoiesis.”

To this end, the state proposed targeted poverty alleviation. Lancang County is a science and technology poverty alleviation site for academicians and experts determined by the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Academician Zhu Youyong took the initiative to help local Lahu farmers learn how to grow and harvest potatoes since 2015. He also brought potatoes to the Great Hall of the People for on-site promotion during the two sessions.

However, agricultural development must not only be “planted,” but also “sold.” Academician Zhu Youyong discovered that local farmers still lack understanding of the market and brands. They are generally at the stage where they know about new things such as e-commerce and live streaming, and don't try much.

In November 2019, Academician Zhu Youyong and Pinduoduo lecturer jointly popularized e-commerce knowledge for students at the current Poverty Alleviation Training Course, encouraging local farmers to expand sales channels and cultivate brand mentality. The first 60 students ranged in age from 20 to 50, and each came from 20 townships across the county. They learned e-commerce knowledge from scratch, such as how to open a store and how to improve the efficiency of store operation, and set up their own online store in Pinduoduo.

Similar agricultural aid cases did not only occur in Lancang. In Longnan, e-commerce companies such as Pinduoduo cooperate with the local government to train farmers. Combining 5G base stations set up by telecom companies, e-commerce service points set up by China Post, and new roads leading to the doorsteps of poor households, they will jointly push local villages out of poverty.

From not knowing anything, to selling local specialties through live streaming platforms, customers are all over the world. E-commerce has invigorated the countryside, and farmers' enthusiasm has been mobilized. The Longnan e-commerce poverty model has also been extended to nearly two-thirds of poor counties at the national level to help more poor households increase their income and get out of poverty.

By the end of 2020, Pinduoduo's “Hometown Good Goods” live broadcast had exceeded 240, covering 29 provinces, municipalities directly under the Central Government and autonomous regions. In total, more than 430 key city, county and district officials entered the agricultural aid live broadcast room to promote local agricultural (secondary) products, generating 670 million agricultural aid orders, and selling agricultural (secondary) products totaling more than 4.12 billion kg, helping 1.13 million farmers. Reshape the industrial chain to deepen technology into every link

After unblocking key joints, it is still necessary to open up channels. Talent and technology must operate in a mature industrial chain to achieve maximum effectiveness.

Sales of agricultural products have improved through e-commerce, but further development has encountered bottlenecks. Facing a larger market, standardized and large-scale production workshops are necessary, and a rich variety of products are needed to meet the diverse and personalized consumption needs of online consumers. This is something native agriculture does not have.

Yunlong County, which produces Nuodeng ham, was once a key county in the country's fight against poverty. In recent years, through cooperation with companies such as Pinduoduo, Nuodeng ham manufacturers have effectively broadened sales channels, increased sales volume, and expanded production scale through online sales. After gradually getting out of poverty, they have encountered this kind of problem.

In August 2020, in order to further resolve the poverty alleviation situation in Yunlong County, Pinduoduo used the East-West Poverty Alleviation Cooperation Mechanism to donate 2.4 million yuan through the Shanghai-Yunnan Cooperation Platform to establish a Nuodeng ham “Poverty Alleviation Workshop” at the Ma Jinqiao Villagers Group in Nuodeng Town, Yunlong County, to establish a development and processing chain for agricultural products characteristic of impoverished regions and promote the upgrading of the Nuodeng ham industry.

At the end of 2020, the Poverty Alleviation Workshop was put into use. It is expected to reach a mass production value of 60 million yuan, driving the surrounding poor to work about 10,000 times. Wages to poor households are expected to reach more than 1.2 million yuan throughout the year, which will effectively help poor households get out of poverty and increase their income.

leatherNew industriesIn addition to the chain, Pinduoduo also continues to use its technological advantages to explore R&D applications for poverty alleviation through science and technology.

“Farmland Cloud Competition” is a system for Pinduoduo to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and benefit both farmers and consumers. In line with the development status of agriculture in China, Pinduoduo uses big data, cloud computing, and distributed artificial intelligence technology to combine scattered agricultural production capacity with scattered demand for agricultural products in the “cloud”, so that agricultural products from impoverished regions can break through the limitations of traditional circulation models and directly connect to the national market.

“Duoduo Orchard” is a poverty-alleviation product launched by Pinduoduo in 2018. It combines the gaming and entertainment needs of the platform's more than 700 million users with the work of poverty alleviation and agricultural aid. Platform users plant saplings in the Pinduoduo client's virtual orchard and cultivate fruit trees through social interaction. After the fruit is ripe, they can receive a free copy of fruit for poverty alleviation and agricultural aid sent by Pinduoduo.

Currently, there are more than 60 million daily active users of “Duoduo Orchard”, and more than 2 million catties of fruit for poverty alleviation and agricultural aid are delivered every day. Since its launch, it has stimulated more than 1 billion people to participate in consumer poverty alleviation efforts.

In 2019, the annual turnover of the Pinduoduo platform broke through the trillion yuan mark, of which the turnover of agricultural and sideline products reached 136.4 billion yuan, making it the largest upward platform for agricultural products in China. In 2020, the turnover of Pinduoduo's agricultural and sideline products exceeded 270 billion yuan, continuing to maintain rapid growth of around three digits.

Because of its outstanding contributions in winning the fight against poverty, Pinduoduo won the “National Advanced Collective for Poverty Alleviation” at the National Poverty Alleviation Summary and Commendation Conference.

Rural revitalization is a relay race. E-commerce guidance and technical support, the investment of new farmers, and the efforts of academicians have achieved good results in joint cooperation.

Rural revitalization is also a marathon. In October 2020, Huang Zheng, founder of Pinduoduo, pointed out in an internal speech that Pinduoduo should continue to innovate deeply in the agricultural field and continue to invest in fields such as 10 billion subsidies, new brand plans, upward agricultural products, and product iteration.

Through continuous innovation in demand, circulation, and production, the agricultural industry chain is being reshaped, and the gap between agriculture and modernization is being bridged.

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