How to solve the core problem of agricultural information asymmetry

In recent years, the concept of "Internet agriculture" has become more and more popular. at the same time, a number of fast-growing start-ups have emerged, such as Tian Youtian, one mu of farmland, Jiawu, chain farmers, American food, restaurant alliance, excellent products, bumper harvest, etc., there are information platform models, there are also O2O, B2B, B2C models, basically each has its own ideas and market space, in fact, no matter which model It mainly solves the core problem of "information asymmetry" in the agricultural industry. Let more product information of origin spread out through the Internet, so that more buyers and ordinary consumers can buy cost-effective products.

When we take an in-depth look at the industry, we will find that the problem of "information asymmetry" only facilitates the contact between the consumer side and the industry side, and does not solve the problem of mutual trust between the consumer side and the industry side. With the gradual improvement of the income level of the Chinese people, the upgrading of agricultural consumption has always been a market with great potential but seriously neglected. On this contradictory issue, we interviewed Tian Huatian CEO Zhang Ning at the 2016 China International Health Expo. He said that Chinese consumers pay more attention to products that reflect their taste in the upgrading of consumption, such as houses, cars, clothing, coffee drinks, restaurants, etc., while neglecting the basic needs of grain, vegetables, fruits and other basic needs of daily meals. In other words, they may be the last thing in the consumption upgrade to be able to put on the consumption list. But in fact, when we talk about health, quality of life and lifestyle, we should look at it from the perspective of the most basic needs, and what we eat is a major factor in our health, and it accounts for a very small proportion of consumption. For example, rice, most of the rice bought by supermarkets in our daily life is about 2 yuan per jin, and the average annual consumption of rice will not exceed 200 jin. Even according to eating better organic rice, calculated from the market price of 10-15 yuan, the annual cost is only 3000 yuan, only enough to buy a better set of clothes. Therefore, how to cultivate this market potential and change consumers' concept of health plays an important role in promoting the upgrading of China's agricultural industry.

Indeed, there is still a large gap in the consumption industry of agricultural products in China compared with the United States, Japan and other developed countries. There is a whole Food Organic supermarket chain in the United States-WholeFoodsMarket is famous for providing high-end organic food (Ganicfoods). It is a favorite supermarket for people in pursuit of high quality of life in the United States, with an annual turnover of more than 3 billion US dollars. In Japan, ordinary families have high requirements for rice for daily consumption, which forces the entire Japanese agricultural industry to have very high standards for producing rice, and the most basic rice sold on the market is of very good quality.

In the Chinese market, why are there so few good products? is there no demand from consumers? We specifically consulted an expert who has studied the agricultural industry for many years, and he told us several deep-seated core questions:

1. Grain cultivation is individualized and decentralized, and effective science and technology, scale and industrialization have not been formed.

China's grain cultivation is mainly based on farmers' own land. with the opening of China's land transfer policy, although some medium and large agricultural bases have been established, its planting model is still difficult to form large-scale production. Compared with some countries with agricultural industrialization, our planting cost is still high. Coupled with the Chinese government's price protection policy on domestic grain, to a certain extent, it is difficult for China's grain prices to compete with foreign grain powers in the international market. It has entered a disgusting cycle in which most of the grain purchased by consumers is imported from abroad, the grain grown at home is priceless, the income of farmers is low, and the land is uninhabited.

2. The immaturity of grain traceability system.

There have been loopholes in the green and organic certification of grain, the construction of the system is not mature and the certification standards are not unified. At the same time, the market is full of more and more green or organic certified products, and the price difference is huge, consumers do not understand, do not dare to buy.

In fact, just ask people in the industry to know that every place has a special agricultural organization to provide green and organic certification, as long as you can get it through certain channels. However, an organic certification does not mean that all the products sold by the enterprise are green and organic, it can only mean that the samples they send to testing institutions barely meet domestic safety standards. And anyone who knows a little about agriculture knows that in China's existing natural environment, growing organic products requires huge upfront costs and time periods, and the output is relatively low. In order to make a profit, enterprises cannot and will not really provide organic products.

To put it bluntly, "organic" is just an advertising gimmick to meet the inner needs of consumers.

3. Regional agricultural products producing areas, weak brand awareness.

Due to the suitability of natural conditions, grain and agricultural products have some geographical landmarks in China, such as rice from Wuchang in Northeast China, rice from Panjin in Liaoning, millet from Qinzhou, Shanxi, black beans from Shenmu, Shaanxi, barley from Xingren, Guizhou, and so on.

These places with a long history naturally have a good awareness of geographical brands in the minds of consumers. This also gives many unscrupulous sellers the opportunity to deceive consumers with bargains made in other places or imported from abroad under the name of local brands, which not only harms the interests of consumers, but also harms the image of these regional brands.

4. Consumers' blind consumption consciousness leads to many health hidden dangers in grain processing.

Food is originally the most important imported food for health and safety. with the improvement of people's consumption level, people have an obvious awareness of the demand for water, air, vegetables and meat, but they are more and more ignorant of food. there is no correct understanding of the importance of traditional food to the comprehensive nutritional needs of the human body.

In order to satisfy the taste of consumers, the production and processing of grain has added a lot of means, such as rice, in order to pursue fragrance mixed with spices, in order to pursue taste, shelling processing peeled off a lot of nutrients. This is also why, in the past, people ate their own food and were very healthy, but now they are getting better and better, but their physique is not as good as it used to be.

5. The competition in the low-price market leads to the bad operation of brands.

The attention of grain in consumption consciousness is not high, which also causes the vicious competition of the whole market price. A few corners and more than a piece of rice can be seen everywhere on the promotion desk in the supermarket, and they are very popular. I don't know how many chaotic operations exist behind this. The profit of grain is already small, in order to make money, sellers do not hesitate to purchase old grain that is cheap enough and have been stored for a long time to sell a small amount of new grain, and mix poorly processed varieties and new varieties for sale, which is difficult for consumers to find.

In this regard, Tian Youtian CEO Zhang Ning also said that, as this expert said, there are indeed loopholes in China's agricultural industry, resulting in the current situation of mutual mistrust between consumers and industries. Consumers can not buy good products, the desire to upgrade consumption is reduced; sellers sell at reduced prices, do whatever it takes to make profits. Satisfaction and compromise make the whole industry more and more chaotic. It is based on this that Tian Youtian, as a start-up company, put forward the interactive consumption concept of participating experience-"grow and eat by yourself". What we want to solve is how to let consumers really eat eco-green products. if the industrial end is willing to spend energy to provide such products, to achieve the exchange of information between the two sides.

Moreover, we have learned that every user of Tian Youtian can get a piece of land for free, and Tian Youtian will communicate with the user in advance, such as what kind of grain to grow, how to plant it, and how much it will cost. How much grain will be produced per mu of land, and what is the range of the final cost of grain? In this way, in the case of the exchange of information between the two sides, all planting links are open and transparent, users get the most affordable and safest products, and the production side will sincerely devote energy to the production of real eco-green, high-quality products to users.

For Internet agricultural enterprises like Tian Youtian, there is still a long way to go in the future, and there are still many problems to be solved at the end of the agricultural industry chain, but with the change of thinking of "user-centered". To be able to bring real good products and safe products to consumers and integrate the relationship between users and producers, I believe it will bring more and more hope to China's agriculture. It will also gradually increase Chinese consumers' demand for high quality basic agricultural products.