E-Commerce Gives a Lift to China's Rural Farmers

choi

Christina Larson, E-Commerce Gives a Lift to China's Rural Farmers. Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Mar 3, 2014.
www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... hinas-rural-farmers

Note:
(a) "LI Chengcai, 83, and his wife, 76-year-old CHENG Youfang, who grow white radishes [and 'sell dried radishes'] in fields shadowed by the Yellow Mountain range. * * * The couple lives in Bishan, a village of 2,800 residents * * * in southern Anhui province * * * About a year ago, ZJANG Yu, a 26-year-old 'young village official 大学生 村官'—that’s her actual title—knocked on Li’s door [to start e-commerce] * * * The online grocery [through Alibaba Group’s Taobao.com platform], officially known as the Young Village Officials’ Farm 大学生村官 [place name here] 农场, has customers in Beijing, Shanghai, and elsewhere, and about 10,000 followers on Weibo. * * * In an area where the average monthly household income is only about 600 yuan ($99), farmers selling produce through the online grocery store can increase their income by a third, according to Zhang."
(i) For "white radish," see daikon
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikon
(Japanese for 大根; Mandarin: 萝卜; Hokkien: 菜頭; or [English:] white radish (Raphanus sativus var. longipinnatus); Despite often being associated with Japan, it was originally cultivated in continental Asia)
(ii) 安徽省黄山市黟县 碧山村 (near 西递村)

(b) "While the migration from China’s countryside into its cities shows no sign of reversing, the rise of e-commerce in rural areas does afford more opportunities. 'We need to better balance development between the rural and urban areas,' says OU Ning, an editor who moved to Bishan to study rural growth. He worries about the social cost of seeing rural areas as left behind."

欧宁, 碧山计划：探寻乡土中国. 中德文化网, October 2013
www.goethe.de/ins/cn/lp/kul/mag/dis/swl/zh11718348.htm
("2011年，我和左靖选择安徽黟县碧山村作为工作基地，成立 '碧山共同体，' 开始共同生活和乡村建设的试验"  / "此文为 '欧洲n次方' 计划而写，发表于台湾《典藏今艺术》(ARTCO)杂志2013年4月号")