China Focus: China's agriculture changed by Internet-savvy youngsters

Agriculture is the latest sector of China's economy to attract a herd of young entrepreneurs, eager to marry their modern, cyber-skills with the most ancient of industries.

Farming has long been a cooperative venture in China. Now, tech-savvy farmers are thriving, raising both their own and their neighbors' incomes and bringing practices up to date.

Cao Xibin, 24, quit a well-paid job as an investment fund manager last year and rusticated to remote Xiushan County in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality to build an e-commerce platform.

Within a year, he had raised several million yuan in investment and sold more than 2 million eggs from Xiushan, shipping them all over the country.

The eggs are gathered from several villages and distributed by courier to big cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

GROWING TREND IN AGRICULTURE

Responding fast to the government's "Internet Plus" strategy, manufacturing and agriculture topped the list of sectors made smarter and more efficient via the Internet.

Farming in China has been booming for more than three decades but has not kept pace with demographic changes and advances in technology. Inefficient sales channels, a shrinking labor force and financing difficulties have been squeezing farmers' earnings and dragging down the rural economy. In 2014, the average per capita disposable income of rural residents rose 9.2 percent to 10,489 yuan (1,720 U.S. dollars), still less than half that of urbanites and under 5 U.S. dollars a day.

The Internet, especially the mobile version, has given farmers a new vision, helping them sell their produce quickly and allowing them to shop around for materials.

According to Alibaba, China's e-commerce heavyweight, there are more than 1.6 million online stores selling farm produce on its Taobao and Tmall. Rural e-commerce was worth more than 140 billion yuan last year.

SMALL ACORNS

Jiang Yi, a former office worker, went back to his hometown in Chongqing to start a business growing exotic trees in 2008. At the beginning, his products did not sell very well.

In 2013, he began marketing his trees online and his sales jumped from less than one million yuan to more than 10 million a year.

"Eighty percent of my products were sold to buyers I found on Wechat and QQ (China's popular messaging apps)," said Jiang.

This kind of innovation is the latest trend in Chinese rural areas. Even ordinary farmers have become curious and are wide-eyed to learn about what the Internet can do for them.

"I was just a normal farmer two years ago, I didn't even know what e-commerce was," said Yang Jun from Xiushan County. "In the past, we talked about how to grow better crops. Now, we talk about how to promote our produce on the Internet."

Established Internet players are also after a bigger slice of the emerging agricultural pie.

Alibaba plans to invest 10 billion yuan to establish 100,000 village service centers in the next three to five years, mostly to teach rural people how to make best use of the Internet. JD.com wants to hire 100,000 villagers as agents to expand their business in 100,000 villages this year alone.

REAP WHAT YOU SOW

On Monday in Beijing, vice premier Wang Yang said that the government should improve rural Internet infrastructure and logistics, nurture tech-savvy farmers, and encourage big data in agriculture.

He encouraged companies to use technology to improve their supply chain, study the latest techniques and find the most appropriate services for their needs.

According to Xu Yuming, head of the institute of urban studies at Chongqing Academy of Social Sciences, predicts a very bright future for rural e-commerce.

"Rural e-commerce is expected to catch up with urban e-commerce in the near future. We are talking about a market worth trillions," Xu said. Endi