Do you buy produce by brand?

Core reading

Agricultural brand is the label of the development level of modern agriculture. The first "Research report on Brand Development of Agricultural products in China" released by the Ministry of Agriculture a few days ago proposes that the government should give full play to the function of public service in the process of brand cultivation, plan the top-level design of agricultural brands, establish and improve the policy system of brand development, and explore the establishment of a brand catalogue system for agricultural products.

Brand awareness is increasing and brand value is increasing, but there are still few well-known brands.

"Nine words can be used to describe the trend of brand development of agricultural products in China, that is, late start, rapid development and great potential." Zhang Zhe, director of the Department of Market and Economic Information of the Ministry of Agriculture, said: in recent years, the brand awareness of agricultural production and operation subjects has been continuously enhanced, and the enthusiasm of registered trademarks has been rising day by day. The number of registered trademarks for agricultural products increased from 600000 in 2008 to 1.25 million in 2012, doubling in four years. However, because of the late start and poor foundation, the competitiveness of many products is relatively small, and the influence of most brands only stays in local areas. There are not many cross-provincial and cross-regional brands, and even fewer international well-known brands.

This point was confirmed at the National High-quality Agricultural products Exhibition week, which opened on December 7. There are thousands of products from more than 10 provinces and cities, including Zhejiang, Sichuan, Yunnan and Shanxi, ranging from high-quality rice to special fruits and vegetables to a variety of highly processed products with high quality and beautifully packaged products, but most of these brands are regional and have low awareness. Aunt Yao, a Beijing resident, hesitated for a long time in front of the "loquat pulp" drink booth of an enterprise. she picked up two bottles of drinks and put them down and asked the reporter in a low voice, "have you ever heard of this brand? I don't know how it is, can you rest assured to drink it?"

The report points out that despite people's growing brand awareness, many local governments and agricultural enterprises still lack new thinking, new methods and new means to create and develop brands. In some places, raw materials are sold as products and local products as brands. Raw materials and products, local products and commodities, commodities and brands are mixed together.

Lu Juan, author of the report and a professor at China Agricultural University, said: from the perspective of the types of agricultural products brands, most of China's existing brand agricultural products are fresh agricultural products and primary processed agricultural products, lacking in intensive processing and secondary value-added products. it is not conducive to the further development of agricultural products brands.

In addition, the institutional system of brand cultivation and protection of agricultural products in China has not been established, and some brands that originally have advantages are difficult to maintain sustained influence due to the imperfect protection mechanism and the impact of fake and shoddy products.

Brand is of great significance to the transformation of agricultural development mode and the increase of farmers' income. it can also protect the interests of consumers and improve the quality and safety level of agricultural products. The process of branding is the process of realizing regional layout, specialized production, large-scale cultivation, standardized control and industrial management. " Zhang Synthetical said.

There is a shortage of talents, funds and policies, and there is an urgent need for the overall planning and guidance of the government.

Brand building is so important, as the main body of brand building, what do agricultural operators think?

"We also know the importance of brand building, but for small and medium-sized enterprises like us, it is too difficult to create a brand. There is a lack of funds, talents and policies." Zhang Wei, a legal person of Xinke Agricultural Technology Service Co-operative in Yiyuan County, Shandong Province, said they did everything they could to start the brand of Yiyuan Red SOD Apple. "to do brand packaging, planning, publicity, all need a lot of money, but also need professional brand marketing personnel. There is no capital accumulation in the cooperative. At the beginning, I was running around with several jobs. I really hope that relevant service organizations can give us a hand. "

"the brand of agricultural products is different from that of industrial enterprises, and its regional, exclusive and public characteristics are very obvious." Lu Juan said that if the regional public brand is compared to an umbrella, then the enterprise's own brand will be carried and sheltered by this "umbrella." The establishment and management of the agricultural regional public brand is different from the enterprise brand, which has a strong public welfare, which needs to be planned and promoted by the agricultural competent department as a whole.

For example, Gannan navel orange is a well-known regional public brand in China. In 2013, the brand value of Gannan navel orange reached 4.811 billion yuan, ranking first in the national citrus brand. Wen Xinliang, chairman of Jiangxi Aoshuai Agricultural Development Co., Ltd., said that thanks to the high popularity of Gannan navel orange, he saved a lot of effort in the process of building the "Aoshuai" brand. "when we established the brand and sales channels in 2008, when we said that we were the main producing area of navel oranges in Gannan, people recognized your things."

Zhang said that it is necessary to have a correct understanding of the role of the government and the market in the process of brand cultivation. The government should give full play to the function of public service, plan the top-level design of agricultural brand, and establish and improve the policy system of brand development. In order to promote brand construction, we should follow the basic principles of market guidance, enterprise subject, government promotion and social participation, and speed up the guidance of all kinds of enterprises, including farmers and farmers' professional cooperatives. Strive to build modern agricultural enterprises with brand value as the core.

"A brand of agricultural products needs to spend a lot of money from its design, registration, publicity, protection to the final formation of the advantage of brand resources, which is exactly what China's agricultural industrialization lacks." Lu Juan said that in developed countries and newly industrialized countries and regions, there is policy finance with high efficiency, low prices and long financing period to protect and support the development of agricultural industrialization in the process of branding agricultural products. She suggested that the government should improve the financial support for brand development and establish a reasonable and scientific financial subsidy mechanism for agricultural enterprises.

Establish a brand catalogue system for agricultural products and strengthen brand protection and supervision

According to reports, many developed agricultural countries generally regard brand as a national strategy to participate in global agricultural competition. In 2003, Japan introduced the Japanese brand strategy and implemented the "Japanese Brand Development support cause", which specially protected the brand as an important part of intellectual property rights. The United States mainly implements policies such as subsidies, tax cuts and loans for brand agriculture. The French red label system proves that agricultural products are different from other general products in terms of production and production processes, and have better quality than other similar products.

"We should fully learn from international experience, study the uniqueness of China's agriculture, tap the rich humanistic value of agricultural products, integrate national strength to realize the effective combination of top-level design and brands, create Chinese national brands, and improve the international competitiveness of agricultural products." Zhang Synthetical said.

As an important part of creating national brands of agricultural products, the report clearly proposes to explore the establishment of agricultural product brand catalogue system. Its focus includes four systems, namely, agricultural brand solicitation system, brand review and recommendation system, brand evaluation system and brand cultivation and protection system.

According to reports, the Ministry of Agriculture will classify agricultural products according to brand types and varieties, classify agricultural products according to the level of influence and scope of influence, systematically sort out the varieties of products and brands, and form a catalogue. The most influential and valuable brands will be included in the national brand catalogue, and regular release and dynamic management will be implemented.

In addition, there is an urgent need to improve the cultivation, protection and supervision mechanism of agricultural brands, and to establish and improve the legal protection system of agricultural brands.

Lu Juan suggested that a hierarchical quality standard system for agricultural products should be established, which is the basis for the development of agricultural product brands. The government should bring the prenatal, mid-production and post-natal links of China's agricultural products production into the track of standardized management, and gradually form a standard system matching with the international, national and industry.