E-commerce companies lend a helping hand to farmers

Chinese e-commerce sites are rolling up their sleeves to help farmers sell their agricultural products. This seems to be a combination of philanthropy and business that contributes to the nationwide eradication of poverty by the end of the year.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is scheduled to launch its annual sales campaign for the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year from Thursday, with a goal of helping farmers sell over 150,000 tons of agricultural products during the month long festive season.

Alibaba plans to maximize public exposure of local produce from impoverished regions by linking customers with a dedicated, one-stop landing page via Taobao’s home page.

“Our purpose is to help farmers increase their income and make quality, yet affordable, agricultural produce more accessible to the vast consumer group,” said Li Shaohua, vice-president of Alibaba and general manager of its rural business unit Rural Taobao.

Dubbed “Rural Produce and Fresh Food”, the channel hosts e-shops from 832 poor counties across China. Local products are displayed and introduced through vivid story telling in a variety of media formats.

E-commerce major JD said in the first half of 2019 people spent 6.6 times that of the previous year on agricultural produce from poor counties via its platform. In just three years’ time, sales of dragon fruit, pineapple and avocado from rural regions surged 8, 3.3 and 3.4 times by the middle of last year, JD’s data showed.

“E-commerce-powered poverty elimination is expected to gain bigger momentum this year, as the internet facilitates not just the consumer end (i.e. making it easy for people to purchase) but the industrial end, meaning research and development, manufacturing and logistics for agricultural producers can be customized and automated through the adoption of artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing,” said Li Yongjian, a researcher of the internet economy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

According to elevenmyanmar.com, China has vowed to eradicate poverty in all poor counties and regions by this year to build a moderately prosperous society in all aspects.

Source: www.freshplaza.com