Zhao Yi: dropped out of university and switched to ecological agriculture

Zhao Yi was admitted to China Agricultural University in 2002. as a post-70s generation, all the people around him called him "Lao Zhao". When asked why, Zhao Yi said: we are still an entrepreneurial team, and we are still partial to the Internet. so we are not particularly accustomed to expressing it in Mr. Zhao's traditional and curriculum way.

Investment in new agriculture is heating up day by day, and people are actively groping for ways to play new agriculture. Zhao Yi, a new farmer, has attracted much attention because of his creation of a new school of agricultural products market, "transparent traceability".

Zhao Yi is not old, but he is called "Lao Zhao". When he was in college, he was named the person of the year for college students. However, a year before he graduated from college, he gave up his diploma and chose to study, starting the arduous journey of starting his own business.

Today, when the country strongly advocates "mass entrepreneurship and innovation", the name Zhao Yi has been mentioned by more young people. As a college dropout, he never left the hot land of the countryside to start a business. Why did Zhao Yi choose to drop out and start his own business? Is his entrepreneurial path smooth? What is transparent traceability?

According to the China Rural Voice "three Rural China" report, Zhao Yi was admitted to China Agricultural University in 2002. As a post-70s generation, everyone around him called him "Lao Zhao". Asked why, Zhao Yi said: we are still an entrepreneurial team. But also partial to the Internet, so we are not particularly accustomed to using the traditional way of Zhao, very curriculum way to express.

After entering school, Zhao Yi led 34 university students out of the ivory tower, to the field, and sat on the farm Kang. In April 2005, they created "high-quality popular science books with strong local flavor" and named the series "Native villagers". Unexpectedly, the compilation of the popular science books on agriculture, rural areas and farmers in the "Native villagers" series has attracted wide attention from all walks of life. Wen Jiabao, the then prime minister, also wrote a letter to the students, highly praising this kind of "feelings for the native land to repay the villagers' feelings of being naked." In that year, Zhao Yi was chosen as the college student's person of the year, the name appeared in "News broadcast" and "People's Daily", Lao Zhao became a famous student leader.

It was in that year that Lao Zhao chose to drop out of school to start a business and develop organic agriculture. This surprised many people.

Zhao Yi: because everyone had a strong sense of insecurity, so I tried to seize all the opportunities. When I studied history when I was a child, I remember the idiom "burn our bridges". At that time, I thought, young people like us are absolutely not short of opportunities, but the difficulty is how I focus on one thing for many years. I decided to start a business, and I had to cut off my options other than starting a business. So I used a more extreme way to express it.

In that year, Zhao Yi was a junior, when he was a student, and there was still a year to go before he graduated from university. according to his situation, he must have been able to find a good job after graduation, but he chose to start his own business. is it because his achievements and honors have brought more confidence that they burn their bridges?

Zhao Yi: it has nothing to do with self-confidence. We think it's fun, but we think it's cool and funny. On the other hand, I know very well that I don't need to write a resume to anyone else, so this thing is not important to me. And many of my entrepreneurial friends also don't have college diplomas. Some of them are influenced by foreign countries, such as Bill Gates, Jobs and Dell, which they think is a very cool thing.

Although Zhao Yi has always said that starting his own business has nothing to do with self-confidence, the reporter can still feel his pride. However, like many people who are starting a business, Lao Zhao feels that he should seize the opportunity. So at that time, what kind of opportunity came before us to make the students in the ivory tower resolutely give up their studies?

Zhao Yi: at that time, we decided to do organic agriculture, so I first found a partner. At that time, we all had money to make organic tea. His chairman, my general manager, we invested 200000 yuan, he invested 100000 2000 yuan, and I invested 90 8000 yuan. At that time, I thought it was very simple. My father told me that grapes needed to find grape trellis, so I first found a partner. My partner at that time was already a billionaire. And an influential entrepreneur.

After two years of cooperation, Zhao Yi encountered a small setback in his first venture due to differences of opinion with his partners on the future development of organic agriculture, but he still adhered to his own concept of organic agriculture and continued his entrepreneurial road. During this period, it also experienced the preparation of a joint venture with one of the largest organic agricultural enterprises in Japan. Although it has no beginning and no end, it also makes Zhao Yi more determined to make traceable food.

Zhao Yi: that experience made me know that 40 years ago, ordinary people in Japan, the United States and Europe experienced the same anxiety about food safety as we did, and looking at the future and the present, it is possible for us to see such a change.

In 2011, Zhao Yi founded the "local folks" and also created a new school-transparent traceability. The so-called "transparent traceability" is to ensure the quality of the product from the source, while on the consumer side, it is in the form of membership system to collect the needs of consumers and do a good job in C2B. He hopes to bring about a reverse-driven reform of the mode of production driven by consumers in the field of tea.

Zhao Yi: we believe that the essence of food safety is adverse selection under a high degree of information asymmetry, so we think it is very important to be open and transparent in order to eliminate information asymmetry and do this through the Internet. it turns out that the biggest problem with the organic certification system is that all information is a black box.