original title:A corn sells for 6 yuan or 7 cents?Just don’t hurt the farmers
A corn for 6 yuan or 7 cents? During the autumn harvest season, the price of corn on e-commerce platforms has once again sparked heated discussions. Some Internet celebrities questioned that Dongfang Selection sold corn at a wholesale price of 7 cents for 6 yuan. Dongfang Selection then responded that the quality and cost are different, and the price cannot be generalized. Although the Internet celebrity has since apologized, the controversy has spread to ordinary farmers on the e-commerce platform. Some netizens who do not know the truth flock to the farmers’ live broadcast room to swipe the screen and shout expensive, affecting the sales of agricultural products.
In recent years, as an emerging business format, live streaming has brought a broader market to the sales of agricultural products and brought some new discussions. Is it reasonable to sell corn for 6 yuan on the live broadcast platform? Can farmers benefit from it? It has also attracted attention before, and this newspaper has also reported on the issue of farmers’ income. This time, it has caused a lot of discussion again, reflecting the society’s increasing attention to agricultural development and farmers’ interests, which is a good thing. But it is a pity that this discussion triggered by “helping farmers” eventually turned into a farce of “harming farmers”. Not only hurts farmers, but also hurts the brand of Northeast Sticky Corn, but also hurts the interests of consumers.
Do you have 7 hairs of corn? We can simply do the math. According to statistics, in 2020, the total cost of corn planting in the country is 1079.98 yuan per mu, and the average yield per mu is 421.13 kg. A well-growing corn can weigh about six or seven taels. According to this estimate, 7 hairs is almost the cost price. Especially this year, driven by factors such as rising prices of agricultural materials, farmers’ production costs have also risen.
What’s more, this corn is not that corn. In our usual perception, corn is boiled and eaten, but the statistical caliber neutralizes the corn actually produced by farmers, including not only edible corn, but also the “big road goods” aimed at the bulk consumer market such as feed. Edible corn is consumed in my country’s corn consumption. accounted for less than 10%. High-quality fresh corn in edible corn has stricter requirements on variety quality, planting method, picking timing, picking method, etc., and the cost is naturally only high. For example, in this debate, some farmers in Heilongjiang, who were told by netizens that corn was expensive, came forward and made a settlement. According to her, most of the farmland where fresh sticky corn is grown are land with good traffic conditions, relatively flat and a certain scale. In the local area, the cost of transferring such fertile land is about 1,800-2,000 yuan per mu, plus the purchase of agricultural machinery. As well as maintenance, labor, fertilizer and other costs, the planting cost of a high-quality fresh corn is about 1.7 yuan. It is undoubtedly unfair for farmers who produce high-quality agricultural products to talk about price without quality. It has also happened before that because high-quality agricultural products could not be sold at good prices, which hurt farmers’ enthusiasm for planting. If the industry wants to achieve high-quality development, the key is to protect the enthusiasm of farmers to produce high-quality agricultural products.
my country has a population of more than 1.4 billion, and the consumer group is huge and complex. We need a sufficient amount of “road goods” to ensure the basic living needs of 1.4 billion people, as well as characteristic high-quality agricultural products to meet diversified market demands. The crux of the problem is how to allow farmers who produce these two types of products to obtain reasonable returns. Branding may be a clearer path. The building of agricultural brands is inseparable from the full cooperation of production, packaging, transportation, marketing and other links. For farmers, benefits can be obtained from moderate scale. “One chopstick is easy to break, but ten chopsticks form a group”, small farmers want to gain a firm foothold in the turbulent market. Improve the right to speak. For the entire industry chain, more consideration should be given to how to establish a reasonable benefit-sharing mechanism. Only when every link can benefit from it can the industry develop sustainably and agricultural brands last longer. A sweet potato grower in Shandong admitted that farmers are relatively lacking in marketing and promotion skills. After the planning and promotion of an operation team, sweet potato, as a local characteristic industry, was quickly brought to the forefront, and farmers’ income doubled. Only through the joint efforts of various parties, to make the brand louder and the cake bigger, can farmers dare to continue planting and make efforts to improve the quality, and then produce more high-quality agricultural products to meet the diversified market demand.
It should also be noted that the cultivation of agricultural brands is not a one-day achievement, but once there is a disturbance, it can easily have an impact on the brand itself and the farmers behind it. Fortunately, this debate did not hurt the fundamentals of the industry, but it also reminded the live broadcast of agricultural products on the tuyere: how to embrace the tuyere while keeping farmers away from risks to the greatest extent?
In fact, once farmers and agricultural brands are harmed, it does not benefit consumers. If farmers’ enthusiasm for production is frustrated, industrial development will be affected. If it is difficult to find a reliable brand in the market, how should consumers choose? Therefore, in the face of the prices of agricultural products on e-commerce platforms, we might as well be more rational and calm. After all, in the long run, caring for the industry is caring for the richness and diversity of your own dining table.
In the final analysis, whether it is 7 cents a piece or 6 yuan a piece, there is no harm in rational discussion, but don’t hurt farmers and those who really “help farmers” under impulse. To judge whether a marketing behavior and marketing model is really “helping farmers”, it depends on what development prospects it can bring to the industry, and more importantly, where it places farmers and what benefits it brings to farmers. . Only when farmers have a reasonable income can all parties in the industrial chain be able to move forward steadily and form a virtuous circle. (Zhao Yuheng)