He returned to his hometown to grow and sell coffee beans with a revenue of more than 10 million a year.

These people all share the same characteristics: they have experienced the baptism of new media and new business models, and they are aware of the need to take practical actions to ensure food safety. To some extent, they are the "new farmers" of the new era.

Once upon a time, Hainan Baisha coffee was like "raised in boudoir, outsiders did not know that she was extremely beautiful." the natural flavor of milk and chocolate coupled with the taste of the coffee itself was very good, but due to the lack of a wide range of channels, coffee farmers could only sell it to buyers at a low price.

November is the season for picking coffee beans in Hainan. " Cheng Zongpei, president of the Baisha Meteorite Ridge Coffee planting Cooperative, is no longer worried this year. On the contrary, he is satisfied with the realization of his wish.

Once upon a time, Hainan Baisha coffee was like "raised in boudoir, outsiders did not know that she was extremely beautiful." the natural flavor of milk and chocolate coupled with the taste of the coffee itself was very good, but due to the lack of a wide range of channels, coffee farmers could only sell it to buyers at a low price.

"Farmers work hard all the year round and cannot earn 1/10 of the profit on finished coffee, while buyers can sell coffee beans for two or three times the price after they collect the beans. Cheng Zongpei has a deep feeling.

Cheng Zongpei was once a farmer in Baisha Li Autonomous County, Hainan Province. in his early years, he went out and started the auto parts wholesale business, earning hundreds of thousands of yuan every year, but he always wanted to make some achievements in the position of a farmer who was concerned about his hometown. the rise of e-commerce has given him an opportunity.

Today, the establishment of coffee-growing cooperatives has increased farmers' bargaining power on coffee beans, and the Internet e-commerce platform has broadened the market, and the cooperative is expected to sell more than 10 million yuan this year.

There are many people like Cheng Zongpei who have returned to their hometown to become farmers again. Most of them are those who left the countryside to work and live in the city through studying and doing business in their early years, and now they have decided to return to their hometown to start a business. These people all share the same characteristics: they have experienced the baptism of new media and new business models, and they are aware of the need to take practical actions to ensure food safety. To some extent, they are the "new farmers" of the new era.

A bumpy road to entrepreneurship

Cheng Zongpei had a hard time at the beginning of his business.

He told China Business Daily that it is time for coffee beans to be ripe and picked. Coffee trees grow tall and have few fruits, and coffee farmers have a lot of work to do every day. Moreover, the road in Baisha County is so rugged that farmers can only pick back the coffee beans picked by manpower step by step, even if they go to the processing plant, which is only 1 km away from the coffee garden, it takes an hour's mountain walk.

The bitterness of opening up the market at first made him even more unforgettable. "when they visited customers to negotiate with them, they didn't give them a chance, and the most exasperating thing was that they even shut us out on the grounds that they didn't have time to receive them."

As a result, Cheng Zongpei offered coffee beans to the processing plant for free to taste, and only after he was recognized did he open the market. Today, the membership of his Baisha Meteor Ridge Coffee planting Cooperative has expanded to more than 60 households, and the villagers have great confidence in him.

The husband and wife of Feng Bo and Zhang Mengjia also have a deep understanding of Cheng Zongpei's experience. Zhang Mengjia, who graduated from college English in 2008, works in international trade in a foreign company. After a few years of work, she decided to return to her hometown, Yongquan Town, Linhai City, Zhejiang Province, which is famous for tangerines, to do the agricultural start-up project of "Yongquan tangerine".

Prior to this, Zhang Mengjia has tried to sell tangerines in the form of the Internet, which is selling well. So, together with Feng Bo, they decided to contract the orange orchard and control the quality from the source of production. But everything didn't go as well as she thought.

Zhang Mengjia told our reporter that it was very hard at the beginning of the business. Tangerines grew on high mountains, and because of the strong wind, the oranges collided with the leaves, so they did not look good. "at that time, they were mainly sold offline, but the channels were not perfect. Basically, I watched the tangerines rot on the trees, but there was nothing I could do about it. And to take care of the orange orchard is to stay in the countryside all the time, and this kind of life is also very boring. "

In the most difficult first year, she even regretted her decision. In the past, the job in a foreign company paid a lot of money, but it was not so hard. At that time, in order to sell tangerines, I had to find people I knew to sell them. However, as the preferred tangerine for gift giving, the most sought-after oranges prefer better-looking oranges rather than theirs.

"at that time, we thought there was nothing we could do." Later, the couple tried to drive to the fruit stores and supermarkets in the surrounding cities to sell tangerines for everyone to taste. It was only after it was recognized by the market that sales slowly increased. "although there were many oranges rotten on the trees that year, the offline channels were still opened, and people began to accept them, so they naturally became my loyal customers, because our oranges were really delicious." Zhang Mengjia said slightly proudly.

New Farmers' pursuit of Food Safety

The driving force for "new farmers" to return to their hometown to start a business is also partly out of the pursuit of food safety.

Yongquan tangerine is known as "strange in the world, eating tangerine with skin". As a local of Yongquan town, Zhang Mengjia said with a smile that he "grew up eating oranges." However, when she saw the media reports that "tangerine farm residues were excessive and chemically waxed", Zhang Mengjia complained on Weibo that "there is too little green food".

However, those tangerines without pesticides could not be sold because they did not sell well and were sent to the cannery for processing as defective products.

So, after taking over the orange orchard, Zhang Mengjia began to study with technicians how to make the "beautiful" oranges healthier and greener. She said that "eating tangerine with peel" is the characteristic of Yongquan tangerine. After washing, the orange peel can be eaten.

The same is true of Cheng Zongpei. He said that Cheng Jun, general manager of Hangzhou Chuanhua Technology Service Co., Ltd., had personally visited the meteorite ridge in Baisha County to inspect the coffee garden, and the concept of organic ecology was also recognized by him.

In an interview with China Business Daily, Cheng Jun said that the emergence of "new farmers" is a small spray of a new round of capital going to the countryside. Compared with the "low cost" in rural areas (cheap land, labor, etc.) and agricultural inputs (growing fertilizer and medicine, etc.) in the past, capital now pays more attention to the "high quality" in rural areas (soil, air, etc.). Try to make a difference in high-quality agricultural products, leisure pension, and so on.

It is precisely because they cherish the food safety of consumers that "new farmers" almost regard the current agricultural entrepreneurial projects as a lifelong career, rather than simply playing with tickets.

Zhang Mengjia said that he is confident that he will do a good job in tangerine and regard it as a health industry and a natural health project.

Cheng Zongpei also believes that this is not an impulse. He wants to pass on the Baisha coffee business pioneered by his parents. "as a matter of fact, I can make money in any business, but I am still willing to do white sand coffee. In addition to being the founder of this brand of agricultural products, he can also lead farmers to increase their income and become rich. " He said.

Crowdfunding orange trees to sell tangerines

Zhang Mengjia, who owns more than 500 mu of orange orchard base, said that 200000 jin of high-quality oranges have been harvested this year, and if all of them can be sold, the sales will be about 1.5 million yuan. Zhang Mengjia revealed that it is precisely under the attraction of such considerable benefits that in the past year or two, more young people have returned home to engage in online fresh fruit sales, and the post-80s generation and even the post-90s generation have come back.

In order to expand the sales scale, Zhang Mengjia and his wife began to adopt the crowdfunding model to sell tangerines this year. She told our reporter that after communicating with old customers, she came up with a way to contract orange trees according to the output of orange trees at a fixed price, so that the output of orange trees contracted by customers would belong to them.

"A tree will have at least 200 jin, and it will be enough to give gifts during the Spring Festival, saving a lot of cost. And you can also bring friends over to help yourself pick. " She said that the crowdfunding proposal was put forward in November last year, and customers felt it was a bargain. When the orange blossomed in May this year, they reached an agreement with their clients. "some of the oranges were sold in this way."

In fact, the application of e-commerce to sell agricultural products is already the standard for "new farmers".

Cheng Zongpei told our reporter that this year he also participated in the Chuan Hua Agricultural Green Science Show, Green Science and Technology set sail style for product display and promotion. Cheng Jun, who is in charge of the two new platforms, said that the main purpose is to build two bridges-- bridges between advanced technology, creative designs and agricultural producers, and bridges between high-quality agricultural products, creative agricultural products and consumers.

The "new farmers" who return to their hometown to do agricultural entrepreneurial projects not only experience the bitterness of market development in the early stage, but also experience pressure from their parents and friends.

Zhang Mengjia said that at first, parents were strongly opposed to it, and their deep-rooted belief was that only by going to big cities could they have a future. It's too hard to work in agriculture. Colleagues can not understand that it is impossible to do agriculture as a career, at most, the countryside is the place for weekend vacation.

It's just that as the project is gradually on the right track, the pressure that has plagued them and made them feel anxious has quietly disappeared.

"the original idea was not to go home and be a farmer, but to do an agricultural entrepreneurial project. One or two years ago when it was not recognized by the market, I felt very sad, but in the Internet era, the forms of sales were diversified, as long as things were good, they were not afraid that there would be no market. " Zhang Mengjia said.

Cheng Jun told our reporter that the "new farmers" who have emerged in recent years are different from the "capable people" in rural areas in the past. They love agriculture more than lead villagers to escape from agricultural production; they study technology diligently, are good at interpersonal communication, and are full of learning spirit and pursue creative innovation. Although the number of this group is not large, but with the help of the mobile Internet and new media, they increasingly form a huge community.