Recently, according to media reports, Hubei grass-roots supply and marketing cooperative restoration and reconstruction to 1,373, basically covering the province's townships; Ningxia township-level supply and marketing cooperatives reached 92.7% coverage.

The China Economic Weekly reporter also learned from the Chongqing Municipal Supply and Marketing Cooperative, the first half of this year, Chongqing has also invested 260 million yuan of financial funds to rebuild the grass-roots level up to 805, around the restart of the supply and marketing cooperatives are in full swing.

But the reform of supply and marketing cooperatives is much more than rebuilding grassroots societies so simple, according to the supply and marketing cooperative data show that in 2021, the national supply and marketing cooperative system to achieve total sales of 6.26 trillion yuan, an increase of 18.9% year-on-year. While Alibaba Group's merchandise turnover was 8.119 trillion yuan in the same period, both are in the same order of magnitude. Supply and marketing cooperatives have always been in the market with no small economic task. So what areas are being strengthened by this reconstruction of the grassroots society of supply and marketing societies? The future of the supply and marketing society grass-roots society to where?

Open restaurants, do recreation, supply and marketing societies appear in all walks of life

After three years of cultivation, has begun to hang fruit citrus.

Demonstration farmland entrusted to the Yubei Supply and Marketing Cooperative

Agricultural materials for farmers to buy are placed in the supply and marketing cooperative

Real-time data from farmland is displayed on the smart agriculture screen in Yulin Supply and Marketing Cooperative in Yubei District's Tujing Town

On Nov. 4, at Jiangkou Village in Yubei District's Tujing Town in Chongqing Municipality, Xu Tianheng, general manager of Chongqing Wisdom Agricultural Service Group Yubei Co. Vest, buried in front of the 188 acres of citrus plantations to do farm work, despite hanging the title of general manager, but every day's work is not in the office, "pointing out", but down to the fields and crops "close contact". Xu Tianheng himself does not feel anything: "Our main work is to deal with the farmland, to provide farmers with agricultural technology services."

Chongqing Wisdom Agricultural Services Group is a subsidiary of Chongqing Agricultural Materials of Production (Group) Co., Ltd. and Chongqing Agricultural Materials of Production (Group) Co., Ltd. is the parent company of Chongqing Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperative Society's wholly-owned subsidiary, Chongqing Supply and Marketing Holdings (Group) Co.

It is clear from the names of these businesses that the shadow of the supply and marketing societies is missing from agricultural services to the sale of agricultural production materials. Supply and marketing agencies involved in the business may be much more than that. A group meal to the authorities, schools, etc. to provide service staff told the "China Economic Weekly" reporter, he is in the enterprise called Chongqing Supply and Marketing Fresh Chain Limited, is also a subsidiary of the Chongqing Supply and Marketing Bureau, which provides group meal ingredients are purchased in Chongqing districts and counties of the supply and marketing channels.

In addition to Chongqing Supply and Marketing Fresh Chain Co., Ltd, according to business information, Chongqing Supply and Marketing Holdings (Group) Co., Ltd. through cooperation with different enterprises in related areas, but also directly or indirectly holding the Chongqing Agricultural Chain Company Limited, Chongqing Sanhe Xinnong Commerce and Trade Company Limited, Chongqing Longzhi Market Investment Company Limited, Chongqing Supply and Marketing E-commerce Industry Development Company Limited, Chongqing Consumer Products Co. Ltd, Chongqing Rural Data Investment Co., Chongqing Renewable Resources Co., Chongqing Cotton & Linen Group Co., Chongqing Aluminum King Aluminum Co. From the establishment of Chongqing Cotton and Sisal Group in the 1990s, to the establishment of Chongqing Renewable Resources Co., Ltd. at the beginning of the 21st century, and then just two years before the establishment of Chongqing Intelligent Agricultural Services Group, from the establishment of these subsidiaries is also not difficult to see that each era of supply and marketing cooperatives have never been absent.

According to the official website of China Supply and Marketing Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of China Supply and Marketing Cooperative, its main business has ten major segments, including agricultural supplies, cotton, renewable resources, consumer goods, e-commerce, agricultural wholesale market, cold chain logistics, agricultural product processing, grain storage and financial services.

A staff member who worked for the Hubei Supply and Marketing Society told China Economic Weekly that the supply and marketing societies have never disappeared, and the current reconstruction of the supply and marketing societies is actually the reconstruction of grassroots societies. Municipal and above supply and marketing societies have always been in business, and covers a wide range of business, its through cooperation with different market players or joint ventures, achieved a lot of good results, in addition to the common rural e-commerce, fertilizers and pesticides, to the Hubei Supply and Marketing Society, for example, under its umbrella, there is also Wuhan city's old hotel, the Methodist Hotel, and is now also involved in recreation, garden complexes, tea, renewable resources, cold-chain logistics and other business The company is also involved in recreation, tea, renewable resources, cold chain logistics and other businesses. Wuhan City Supply and Marketing Bureau, on the other hand, has a national paint, yellow crane brand tea, mountain green group (cold chain logistics), Yinpeng company (cotton electronic trading, warehouse receipt pledge) and other businesses.

From the reconstruction of grass-roots societies to the "integration of the three societies"

"So the supply and marketing society as a whole does not exist in the reconstruction. The reconstruction is now talking about grassroots societies, that is, supply and marketing societies below the county level." Yuan Mingbao, an associate researcher at the Institute of Rural Revitalization Strategy of Southwest University, told China Economic Weekly that the establishment of China's supply and marketing society system and the elimination of grass-roots societies have a certain historical background; in the 1990s, due to the inability to keep up with the pace of economic reforms, supply and marketing societies suffered consecutive losses, and in order to turn a loss into a profit, supply and marketing societies began to close down the grass-roots societies that were relatively backward in terms of service as well as those that were unable to generate a profit; while the reconstruction of grass-roots societies now The reconstruction of the grass-roots level has a similar logic, with the economic development, the county circulation service network system gap, the grass-roots level of supply and marketing societies once again ushered in the market demand.

Speaking of the reconstruction of the grass-roots associations of the Supply and Marketing Bureau, Yuan Mingbao said that it is not just the beginning of these two years, the reconstruction of the grass-roots associations of the Supply and Marketing Bureau can be traced back to the earliest news in 2014.

On April 5, 2014, the State Council approved the consent of the Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives to carry out a pilot project in Hebei, Zhejiang, Shandong, Guangdong, four provinces, the pilot will be in accordance with the transformation of the self, the requirements of the service farmers, and vigorously promote the supply and marketing cooperatives to organize innovation, service innovation, business innovation, and improve the institutional mechanism. After Hebei, Zhejiang, Shandong, Guangdong 4 provinces began to promote the reform of supply and marketing cooperatives, and in the process, the lack of grass-roots societies makes the circulation system and service system lacks a key link.

In March 2015, the central government and the State Council issued the "decision on deepening the comprehensive reform of supply and marketing cooperatives" (China Development [2015] No. 11), supply and marketing cooperatives around the deepening of the comprehensive reform of the work of the official start. Also by the beginning of this reform, the reconstruction of the supply and marketing cooperative system has also drawn the curtain.

After a certain amount of pilot experience, the 2021 Central Document No. 1 further proposed to carry out production, supply and marketing, credit "trinity" integrated cooperation pilot, to improve the service of farmers production and life integrated platform. In this policy context, the grassroots coverage of supply and marketing cooperatives in many places has begun to improve significantly.

2021 June 11, the Ministry of Commerce and other 17 departments jointly issued the views on strengthening the construction of the county commercial system to promote rural consumption, the views clearly put forward to improve the rural circulation network, the establishment of a perfect county integrated, to the county as the center, townships as the focus of the village as the basis of the rural commercial system. By 2025, in areas with the conditions, the basic realization of the county county has a chain of supermarkets and logistics distribution centers, townships and townships have trade centers, villages and villages through the courier, an average of 1 million new rural online business (store), to cultivate 30 national agricultural products origin professional market, the operation of agricultural products in the public welfare market local municipal level coverage rate increased from 40% to 60%.

Yuan Mingbao said, at the beginning of the pilot in four provinces, he respected the practice of Shandong, supply and marketing societies to provide land trusteeship services for farmers to achieve land income. After Chongqing, Guizhou and other places have developed on this basis, "three societies integration", that is, the supply and marketing societies, farmers' professional cooperatives, credit unions, three societies to support each other, the integration of development, supply and marketing societies to open up the circulation network, farmers' professional cooperatives engaged in specialized agricultural production, credit unions to provide financial support for agricultural production, the combination of three in order to be able to open up the agricultural production of the elements of resources.

Yuan Mingbao also mentioned to the reporter, the supply and marketing society is currently one of the most important function is to carry the agricultural socialized service system, supply and marketing society to play to their own advantage, the joint farmers professional cooperatives to solve the practical problems of small farmers. Supply and marketing societies will be directly involved in the operation and production of professional cooperatives, integrating multiple small farmers in order to form a large-scale operation." This is the main work of the current integration of the three societies to form a village society **** building."

A smart citrus demonstration garden in Jiangkou Village, Tujing Town, Yubei District

Detection boards in the smart farmland, recording and transmitting data in real time

Agricultural machines that can be used by farmers are placed in the supply and marketing societies

Supply and marketing society staff helping farmers carry fertilizers Contributed by |Interviewed by

Smart agricultural breakthroughs for supply and marketing societies

"Apart from guaranteeing the supply of agricultural materials, a more important role in rebuilding grass-roots cooperatives role lies in building a county distribution service network, and the 'integration of the three societies' established on this basis, Chongqing has made its own characteristics." Yubei District, Chongqing Municipality, director of the supply and marketing society, Ku Xiyin told the China Economic Weekly reporter, this year, Yubei District in deepening the comprehensive reform of the supply and marketing has done a lot of work, including the construction of county distribution service network and the provision of socialized services in the field of agriculture was highlighted.

What is socialized services in agriculture? Xu Tianheng said his current work is actually one of the links.

In November, although it is not yet time for the citrus harvest, the reporter saw in Jiangkou Village, where Xu Tianheng works, that a lot of fruit trees in the local fields have been hung with slightly yellow citrus. And whether it's the spacing of the plants or the hanging fruit, the 188 acres of citrus orchards managed by Chongqing Wisdom Agricultural Service Group do look distinctly different from citrus grown in other parts of the village. Koo told the China Economic Weekly reporter that the citrus orchard here is the Yubei District Supply and Marketing Bureau efforts to build the "Yubei intelligent agricultural services" brand project, through the local farmers land contract management rights into shares and integration, formed a piece of unified management of the supply and marketing society here by the wisdom of the farmland.

In the grass-roots community of the hall is set in a large screen full of sense of technology, the screen constantly switching the local smart farmland in the camera real-time recording of images and soil, air humidity, wind and other data; also recorded in the corresponding fertilizer suppliers in the supply and marketing agency prices and quantities. Xu Tianheng said, behind this screen is an agricultural big data platform, which details the data necessary for the management of smart farmland, as well as the corresponding circulation of agricultural data, "here not only scientific management of the land in our hands, but also real-time monitoring of the circulation of agricultural materials, assuming that which batch of fertilizer problems, through the screen you can directly find the source of the problem.

And this is only the first half of the agricultural socialized services, Koo Xiu Yin explained that the entire agricultural socialized services is a chain, from the field to plant what, how much, when to plant began, agricultural agriculture village committee to provide the relevant technology to co-ordinate the planning of the grass-roots level of supply and marketing societies are responsible for the implementation of specific technology in the planting and cultivation process, the supply and marketing societies not only to provide the procurement of agricultural materials, but also to receive Farmers of the complete hosting, the whole process to help take care of crops throughout the growth process; in the crop maturity, the supply and marketing society can also be through their own supply and marketing system, docking farmers markets, supermarkets, e-commerce platforms, and so on, so that agricultural products will be sold out.

The agricultural socialization services provided by the supply and marketing cooperatives have also been recognized by farmers. Yubei District, a local villager said that due to the dry weather in Sichuan and Chongqing this summer, the irrigation of field crops and subsequent fertilization are due to lack of water and greatly affected, and his knowledge of agricultural production are from the experience of the older generation, in the face of this rare drought, there is almost no way to do so, so the local supply and marketing cooperatives for help. The local supply and marketing agency also did its best to give some technical and human support to help the local villagers to minimize losses through the dry weather.

From farming to pest control, from disaster response to sales of finished products, the entire process can be provided by the supply and marketing agency, which is what Koo Xiyin referred to as "agricultural socialization services." As long as the supply and marketing cooperatives can provide services to farmers, can be called agricultural socialization services. These services can be fully managed, or they can provide different technical support or solutions according to different needs. Although paid, but as long as it can help farmers solve practical problems, such services can be realized **** win."

Challenges to the reconstruction of grassroots societies

"The socialized services provided by the supply and marketing societies and the construction of the distribution system are fundamentally aimed at solving the production problems of agriculture. As a result of China's urbanization in recent years, there has been a labor migration from the countryside to the cities, which has led to the hollowing out of the rural population and a certain pressure on agricultural production." Yuan Mingbao said that, in his view, the reconstruction of the grassroots of the Supply and Marketing Bureau is actually a way to stabilize the rural working population to ensure the scale of agricultural production, but whether the grassroots of the Supply and Marketing Bureau can survive, it needs to be further verified.

Yuan Mingbao revealed that in order to ensure the normal operation of the grass-roots level, the reconstruction of the grass-roots level of the Supply and Marketing Cooperatives is currently subject to certain standards, such as the need to have a sufficient business area, there must be a full-time staff and so on.

According to the data provided by the Chongqing Municipal Supply and Marketing Bureau, Chongqing is restoring and rebuilding the grass-roots level in the work of the financial resources invested 260 million yuan to rebuild the grass-roots level of 805, 6200 rural integrated service centers, covering 67% of the city's administrative villages. The eligible grass-roots organizations, integrated service centers transformed into township integrated supermarkets, village-level sales outlets, built 1230 township integrated supermarkets, village-level sales outlets 5600.

The reconstruction has such a speed as well as a huge number, thanks to the reconstruction model.

Yuan Mingbao revealed that in the provinces and cities he studied, the reconstruction of the grass-roots level is generally divided into three categories, the first is a joint venture with the village agricultural cooperatives or village collective organizations, so that the relevant person in charge of rural cooperatives or village cadres attached to the grass-roots level, in charge of the grass-roots level of supply and marketing business; the second is to invest in the village's original business enterprises to achieve the holding of the local village enterprises have established a circulation system; the third is wholly owned, directly to the distribution system, the village enterprises; the third is a wholly owned, directly to the distribution system. The third type is wholly owned, directly set up the corresponding social enterprises, management and operation personnel from the higher supply and marketing societies assigned personnel." But because of the third type of business staff remuneration for the higher supply and marketing societies to provide, there are business ideas and service levels can not keep up with the market's pitfalls, so it is very rare. At present, the most common in Chongqing is the first type, that is, the integration of the three societies eventually formed organization."

But the problem also comes, because some of the villages and towns themselves there are trade and circulation enterprises, the emergence of grass-roots societies make the two appear business competition.

The price of agricultural materials is now more important to farmers. Koo Xi Yin told the "China Economic Weekly" reporter, due to external environmental factors led to the high price of fertilizer in the past two years, and the supply and marketing societies in the previous round of procurement of fertilizers signed a one-year agreement, which also makes the supply and marketing societies in the scope of the agreement can still be in accordance with the price of fertilizer before the rise in the purchase of fertilizers, in this way the supply and marketing societies in the price of fertilizers to obtain a certain advantage.

But this advantage is difficult to sustain. Banan District, Chongqing City, farmers Yue Anqing told the China Economic Weekly reporter, due to the large amount, so he purchased fertilizer are generally directly to the fertilizer factory, to buy at factory prices, almost never go to the supply and marketing agency. Luo Yang, another farmer living in Liangdang County, Longnan City, Gansu Province, also revealed to the China Economic Weekly reporter that he buys pesticides and fertilizers from three different suppliers, and most of the cases are purchased in the town's agricultural stores, rarely through the supply and marketing societies. And most of the household goods from the town's private mini-mart, the price of these goods in the supply and marketing agency is not attractive, and even at the same price, he preferred to buy in the private mini-mart, "because the boss is familiar with the townspeople often take care of each other's business."

"Now there are rumors on the Internet that the supply chain is going to build a community canteen, I think it is very unlikely. In the face of competition from other private companies in the market now, supply and marketing societies basically do not have this ability to develop community canteen business; grassroots societies how to maintain sufficient competitiveness in the agricultural market is what they are now considering." Yuan Mingbao analysis, to provide market-oriented services to ensure that they can continue to make a profit may be the future of the village supply and marketing society of a direction.

But this direction may be equally unpromising. According to the description of Koo Xi Yin, Chongqing Yubei District's full hosting "smart farmland" did not charge any fees for the first three years, from the third year onwards, the supply and marketing society will be charged a fixed annual expenditure, after deducting this part of the surplus, and then by the supply and marketing society and the rural cooperative farmers to share the profits. In the agricultural production of such a long cycle and uncertainties in the industry, such a model undoubtedly bear some risk.

"For example, this year's drought, the dry weather in July and August, even if it does not cause a large-scale reduction in production, but also inevitably affects the ripening of mandarin oranges in January, the water of the fruit as well as the quality of the pulp. And the quality is not good enough to sell the fruit on the road will be limited? And will the labor paid by the supply and marketing societies in the first three years be able to recover the cost as planned?" Yuan Mingbao believes that the supply and marketing cooperatives as a market entity, to have a sense of risk, the need to maintain their own market competitiveness at the same time, to consider how to improve their own risk-resistant ability, after all, only their own survival in the market environment, in order to better stabilize the county circulation service network.

(This article appeared in the China Economic Weekly, Issue 21, 2022)

China Economic Weekly, Issue 21 Cover