Agricultural brand is an important symbol of agricultural and rural modernization, and cultivating and developing agricultural brand is an important starting point for comprehensively promoting rural revitalization and accelerating the construction of an agricultural power. In 2022, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued the "Excellent Agricultural Brand Cultivation Plan (2022-2025)", which defined the objectives, tasks and measures for strengthening agricultural brands. In 2023, the No.1 Document of the Central Committee proposed to support poverty-stricken areas to build regional public brands. In this issue, invited experts will discuss issues related to brand strengthening agriculture.
Actively cultivate agricultural brands
What is the current development of agricultural brands in China?
Hu Glacier (Director and Researcher, Agricultural Products Trade and Policy Research Office, Institute of Rural Development, China Academy of Social Sciences): Agricultural brand building is an important measure to promote the high-quality development of agriculture. Cultivating and developing agricultural brands is conducive to improving the modernization level of the whole agricultural industry chain, guiding the gathering of high-quality resources, and promoting the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure, which is an important way to increase farmers’ income and enhance agricultural competitiveness.
In recent years, the state has issued a series of policies and measures around building agricultural brands. In 2022, the No.1 Document of the Central Committee proposed to carry out the actions of improving agricultural varieties, improving quality, building brands and improving standardized production. In 2023, the No.1 Document of the Central Committee proposed to support poverty-stricken areas to build regional public brands. In April this year, the General Office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued the "Implementation Plan for Supporting Poverty-stricken Areas to Build Regional Public Brands (2023-2025)", emphasizing the efforts to build regional public brands in poverty-stricken areas and promoting the effective connection between consolidating and expanding poverty-stricken achievements and rural revitalization.
All localities actively cultivate agricultural brands in light of their own reality. For example, Heilongjiang Province, as a major agricultural province, has made great efforts to build a provincial-level high-quality agricultural brand with "excellent black soil", build a "1141" agricultural brand system and build a life-cycle agricultural brand management mechanism. In order to strengthen the construction of agricultural brands and establish and improve the mechanism of cultivation, development and protection of agricultural brands, Hainan Province has promoted the establishment of an agricultural brand catalogue system.
Agricultural brands have achieved practical results in promoting the quality and efficiency of agricultural industries. According to estimates, compared with 2012, in 2022, the output of public brand agricultural products in China agricultural brand catalogue area increased by nearly 55%, and the sales increased by nearly 80%, driving the income of local farmers to increase by 65%. From the current development of agricultural brands in China, it has the following characteristics.
First, regional public brands, corporate brands and product brands have developed rapidly. According to the data of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, in recent years, agricultural and rural departments at all levels have further promoted brand strengthening agriculture and cultivated a number of influential agricultural brands. By the end of 2021, about 3,000 regional public brands, 5,100 enterprise brands and 6,500 product brands have been cultivated by provincial agricultural and rural departments. According to relevant reports, Wuchang Rice, as a regional public brand, has a brand value of 71.31 billion yuan in 2023.
Second, the cultivation of agricultural brand products and brand assistance have achieved results. The "Excellent Agricultural Brand Cultivation Plan (2022-2025)" proposes that by 2025, we will focus on grain and oil, fruits and vegetables, tea, animal husbandry, aquatic products and other categories, build a number of regional public brands of agricultural products with excellent quality, distinctive features, strong driving force, high reputation and consumer loyalty, and cultivate and promote a number of enterprise brands and high-quality features with excellent products, good reputation, obvious industrial driving effect and core competitiveness. In 2022, 75 brands including Wuchang Rice, Enshi Potato, Luochuan Apple, Wenchang Chicken and jinxiang garlic were included in the agricultural brand quality cultivation plan, and 69 brands were included this year. In terms of agricultural brand assistance in poverty-stricken areas, by the end of 2022, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs had taken the lead in helping 20 key counties, and the average premium of branded agricultural products in poverty-stricken areas exceeded 20%.
Third, the variety, quality and brand of agricultural products are integrated with each other. In the process of agricultural and rural economic development, the rapid growth of corporate brands has brought about market segmentation, which often reflects the quality differences in the early days. In recent years, with the continuous emergence of new crop varieties, the protection of intellectual property rights has gradually increased, and more and more new varieties are deeply bound to brands. For example, in 2022, many new corn varieties such as "Denghai 2035", "Denghai 2052" and "Denghai 2056" independently developed by Denghai Seed Industry passed the examination and approval, and "Denghai" became the brand prefix of crop varieties.
Fourth, the ability of brand marketing and promotion has been improved, and the speed of brand renewal has been greatly accelerated. With the help of the Internet, agricultural brands promote consumer reach and sales through digital marketing. With the help of well-known exhibitions and other platforms at home and abroad, the promotion efforts have been intensified, and various channels such as video and live broadcast have been used to enhance the communication power. High-quality agricultural products have been sought after more and more, and new agricultural brands have begun to emerge, including many emerging, innovative and differentiated agricultural brands. For example, Xuwen pineapple, fire crystal persimmon and other high-quality agricultural products quickly became popular. Cultivating agricultural brands needs to consider long-term value, which also requires building a comprehensive brand development strategy.
Fifth, the brand participation of consumers continues to increase. In the traditional sense, consumers’ contribution and participation to the brand depends on factors such as culture and habits. However, with the development of mobile Internet, more and more consumers’ feedback has been absorbed into the cultivation and development of agricultural brands. The relationship between agricultural brand cultivation and consumer feedback is getting closer and closer. Some consumers directly send the design drawings of product packaging and brand to manufacturers through short videos, and some consumers participate in brand promotion through media.
We should also see that at present, there are still many problems in China’s agricultural brands, such as excessive but not refined, large but not strong, and brand influence needs to be improved, which is also the focus of brand promotion in the future. With the improvement of the level of economic and social development, more and more excellent agricultural brands will come to the fore, constantly meeting the people’s growing needs for a better life.
Help improve agricultural quality and increase farmers’ income
What is the role of agricultural brands in promoting agricultural quality and efficiency and increasing farmers’ income?
Liu Naiyong (researcher, National Agricultural Market Research Center, China Agricultural University): In recent years, China’s agricultural brands have mushroomed, which not only allows consumers to enjoy more high-quality agricultural products, but also plays a significant role in promoting the high-quality development of agricultural industries and increasing farmers’ income.
First of all, agricultural brand building has promoted the development of agricultural industry standardization. Agricultural products have natural non-standardized characteristics, and coupled with a series of processes such as cleaning, sorting, packaging, warehousing and logistics, it is difficult for agricultural products to maintain stable quality and consumption experience. Cultivating and developing agricultural brands has enabled many new agricultural operators to embark on the road of standardized production, and through modern industry and digital technology, the whole process of agricultural products from field to table has been standardized. In the process of brand building, agricultural business entities promote the whole agricultural industry to form a more mature division of labor system, optimize the efficiency of industrial factor input allocation, and greatly improve the total factor productivity of agricultural industry. For example, wuchang city, Heilongjiang Province, following the development idea of "building a brand, bringing vitality to an industry and enriching farmers", built a regional public brand of Wuchang rice, comprehensively promoted the standardized production of Wuchang rice, standardized all the processes and procedures such as seed, planting, storage, processing, environment and traceability management, established and improved the whole process standard system from field to table, and promoted the high-quality development of Wuchang rice, with an output value of about 16 billion yuan in 2021. Zhashui County, Shaanxi Province actively builds a regional public brand of auricularia auricula, cultivates a number of auricularia auricula strains unique to Zhashui, promulgates local standards in Shaanxi Province, establishes a technical service system for enterprise demonstration planting and the whole process of auricularia auricula industry, implements the standard awareness rate and reaches 100%, and promotes the transformation of auricularia auricula from relying on traditional experience to modern standardized production, achieving annual cultivation of about 100 million bags of auricularia auricula and production of about 5,000 tons of dried auricula, effectively driving farmers to increase their income.
Secondly, agricultural brands communicate both ends of supply and demand, which promotes the adjustment and upgrading of agricultural industrial structure. By creating agricultural brands, the differentiated characteristics of agricultural products such as physical geography, production process, technology and product quality are passed on to consumers, and agricultural brands become a "bridge" for communication between producers and consumers. At the same time, in the process of cultivating and developing agricultural brands, changes in the consumer market are constantly fed back to agricultural business entities, promoting the transformation and upgrading of industrial structure. For example, Qingcaitou was originally a traditional planting variety in Fuling District, Chongqing, and pickled mustard tuber with it was a snack for people on both sides of the Yangtze River. With the fast pace of people’s life, the consumption demand of simple fast food, business trip and accompanying dishes is expanding rapidly. Grasping the opportunity of changing consumer demand, Fuling District has made great efforts to build a regional public brand of Fuling mustard tuber. While adhering to the traditional production techniques, it has continued to develop and promote excellent varieties with high yield and disease resistance and suitable for harvesting machines, keeping up with market development and demand, innovating product research and development, and building a brand matrix. Today, Fuling mustard tuber has become a pillar industry with an annual output value of more than 13 billion yuan. Traditional production techniques have been listed in the national intangible cultural heritage list. The products are sold all over the country and exported to Japan, Australia, the United States and other countries and regions.
Thirdly, the creation of agricultural brands has promoted the upgrading of industries with traditional characteristics and advantages, and helped rural revitalization and farmers’ income increase. At present, China’s consumer demand has changed from focusing on quantity growth to pursuing quality life, and the development of agricultural industry has also paid more attention to improving quality and efficiency. Developing agricultural brands can effectively promote the upgrading of industries with traditional characteristics and advantages, and help revitalize rural industries and enrich the people and strengthen agriculture. For example, xuwen county is the largest pineapple producing area in China, accounting for more than one third of the country’s pineapple planting area. With the increasing variety of fruits, xuwen county has built Xuwen pineapple regional public brand, promoted excellent varieties of pineapple, issued regional public brand logos, established pineapple buyers’ alliance, vigorously organized the docking of production and marketing, and promoted Xuwen pineapple sales growth. The industrial output value climbed from 980 million yuan in 2018 to about 2.5 billion yuan in 2022, which led to about 50,000 farmers. There are many industries with traditional advantages like Xuwen pineapple in China, and brand building is a powerful means and an effective path to promote its upgrading, help rural industries revitalize and realize enriching the people and strengthening agriculture.
"internet plus" promotes brand building
What are the practices of cultivating and developing agricultural brands in China in e-commerce marketing and digital empowerment?
Qi Yunlan (Research Fellow, Institute of Market Economy, the State Council Development Research Center): In recent years, all localities have attached great importance to the cultivation and development of agricultural brands, and used various marketing methods such as the Internet, e-commerce and new media to publicize agricultural brands, expand marketing channels of agricultural products, empower agricultural fields with digital technology, and enhance the level of agricultural modernization and promote the construction of agricultural brands through digitalization, networking and intelligence.
The first is to introduce an e-commerce platform to help build a high-quality agricultural brand. From a national perspective, many villages and towns based on the advantages of local resources, by introducing e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.COM, cultivate e-commerce talents, open up channels for production and marketing, and improve the scale and standardization level of production and sales of advantageous agriculture, so that one village (or several villages) can own a brand product or brand industry with great market potential, obvious regional characteristics and high added value. Moreover, the scale of some village-level dominant brand agricultural products has gradually expanded to towns and even counties, forming dominant industrial clusters with brand influence, and the brand development effect and spillover effect are remarkable. Taking changge city as an example, e-commerce has become an important starting point to promote the innovation and development of brand agriculture. Twenty well-known e-commerce platforms, such as Alibaba International Station, Tmall, AliExpress and JD.COM, were introduced locally, and more than 20,000 online stores were opened. In 2022, e-commerce transactions reached 16.7 billion yuan.
The second is to strengthen the introduction and cultivation of e-commerce talents, widely use new media marketing methods such as live broadcast and short video, publicize and promote agricultural brands, and expand agricultural product marketing channels. From the practice of various places, great efforts have been made to strengthen the training and introduction of e-commerce talents and enrich product connotations and scenarios. Many local governments, together with industry associations, have organized training to explain the contents of "prospering agriculture through several businesses", live broadcasting with goods, brand building, etc., and trained a group of "new farmers" who have mastered the operation ability of new media to strengthen the promotion of agricultural brands. At the same time, build online celebrity products and expand the market influence of agricultural brands. In some places, in the construction of agricultural brands, through the cooperation of the government, enterprises, farmers and associations, the quality of agricultural products is improved and the brand connotation is enriched from the aspects of building a green production system and a quality and safety traceability system. With new e-commerce formats such as content e-commerce, interest e-commerce and social e-commerce as the carrier, we will build brand image through multiple platforms and channels, enrich marketing scenarios and promote the sales of agricultural products. According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, in the first half of 2023, the online retail sales of rural physical goods nationwide was 1.02 trillion yuan, up 11.3% year-on-year.
Third, relying on big data of agricultural products trading and using digital technology as a means to optimize the whole agricultural industry chain and accelerate the development of agricultural branding. In recent years, rural e-commerce is extremely active, and a large number of online real-time transaction data are gathered in the process of agricultural products e-commerce transactions. Agricultural product producers and operators in various places use the user data of e-commerce platform to understand consumer demand in multiple dimensions, and apply big data acquisition and analysis technology to dynamically match the supply chain management of agricultural products and fill the shortcomings of sales channels. At the same time, improve the traceability system of agricultural products, standardize and optimize the whole industrial chain and supply chain of agricultural products from production, packaging, transportation, storage to sales and after-sales, and increase the added value and brand premium of agricultural products. For example, in promoting "developing agriculture through several businesses", Shanghai connects the supply and demand sides through platforms such as Life, Pinduoduo, and Meituan to promote the sales of agricultural products, especially brand-name agricultural products, and better meet the living needs of urban residents. According to a survey, 42.6% of Shanghai residents are willing to pay a premium of 10% to 30% to choose branded agricultural products, and the online repurchase rate is 84.1%.
Fourth, give full play to the guiding role of the government. Relevant departments, in combination with the characteristics of regional agricultural resources, make clear the overall goal and development direction of regional agricultural products branding, and plan the integrated development of regional public brands and industrial clusters. In practice, all localities attach great importance to the construction of special agricultural products production and processing bases, logistics industrial parks, basic information networks and other facilities, providing a strong guarantee for large-scale production, sales and logistics. In particular, by uniting rural e-commerce enterprises, we will jointly build a warehouse-distribution logistics integration base and share warehouse-distribution manpower, material resources and site resources, thus significantly reducing the distribution cost of express delivery enterprises and the storage cost of rural e-commerce enterprises.
To sum up, under the background of "internet plus", China’s agricultural brand cultivation methods have been continuously innovated, and the level of standardization, digitalization and traceability has been significantly improved. E-commerce, live broadcast, short video and other new media marketing channels have been widely used in the field of agricultural product marketing, and an agricultural brand development model based on standardized production and quality certification has been initially formed, with digital empowerment, production and marketing docking and brand building as the means.
Focus on local products and create a golden business card for regional development
How can all localities give full play to their unique resource advantages, do a good job in "local products" and promote the development of agricultural brands?
Hu Xiaoyun (Director, China Agricultural Brand Research Center, China Rural Development Research Institute, Zhejiang University): Our country is rich in special agricultural products, which are unique in regional ecology, variety quality, technological characteristics, cultural connotation and product flavor. As an excellent local product, geographical indication agricultural products have become an important carrier to build agricultural brands.
Since the beginning of this century, all localities have given full play to their unique resource advantages, done a good job in "local products" articles, from theoretical research to policy support, and started with the creation of regional public brands of agricultural products, so as to brand distinctive agricultural products, enhance the resource value of local products, and achieve a win-win situation for all parties.
First, theoretical research helps the development of agricultural branding. The most distinctive resources in China’s agriculture are geographical indication agricultural products based on the ecological and cultural connotations of specific regions. The number of theoretical research results on the creation and management of special geographical indications and regional public brands is increasing. For example, the number of papers on China Knowledge Network with agricultural brands and regional public brands of agricultural products as keywords is increasing, and the theoretical support system for agricultural brand building is constantly being built. The theoretical research of relevant teams in colleges and universities has promoted the development of agricultural brands in China, especially the branding process of high-quality local products, and also promoted the introduction of relevant support policies.
The second is to strengthen the protection and management of agricultural products with geographical indications. Based on an international perspective, relevant departments actively promote the protection of origin, the registration of geographical indications trademarks and the registration of geographical indications of agricultural products, promote the development of agricultural products with geographical indications, and learn from the international experience of agricultural products brand development to promote the system design of agricultural brand development. More and more attention has been paid to the development of agricultural brands in various places, and a series of agricultural brand building with local characteristics has been carried out. In 2019, new special signs for geographical indications were released. The Notice of the General Office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Doing a Good Job in the Implementation of the Protection Project of Geographical Indications Agricultural Products in 2022 proposes to tap traditional farming culture and cultivate regional brands with geographical indication agricultural products as the core.
Third, steadily promote the branding of agricultural products with geographical indications. All localities have promoted geographical indication agricultural products to create a regional public brand of agricultural products with a single category (industry), and become the leading brand and platform brand of local agriculture, which has enhanced the brand value of local products. For example, Yanchi County in Ningxia strives to build a regional public brand around Tan Sheep, and professional institutions design brand strategies and spread brands for it. Yanchitan sheep (meat) has been selected as a national geographical indication protection product, China Agricultural Brand Catalogue 2019 regional public brand of agricultural products, etc. In 2022, the total industrial chain output value of Tan sheep in Yanchi County reached 6.45 billion yuan, and the income from Tan sheep breeding accounted for more than 50% of the per capita disposable income of local farmers. At present, the regional public brands of agricultural products based on geographical indications have more and more market influence, and have formed a brand cluster effect.
The fourth is to explore the creation of regional public brands of multi-category agricultural products. Based on the actual situation of mountainous areas in China, such as many agricultural categories, small scale, scattered planting blocks, unique varieties and techniques, relatively poor regional economy and weak regional influence, all localities explore and promote the construction of agricultural brands, create regional public brands of multi-category agricultural products, and force product standardization through branding to improve product quality. Relying on the unique mountain ecological environment, Lishui City, Zhejiang Province has built a regional public brand "Lishui Shangeng" (registered as a collective trademark) of multi-category agricultural products, gathered regional agricultural resources, let "mountain products" go out of the "mountain gate" and enhance the brand value of ecological fine agricultural products. It has formed many industries such as fungi, tea, fruits, vegetables and medicines, and the annual sales of "Lishui Shangeng" agricultural products exceeded 10 billion yuan. Chongqing’s "Ba Wei Yu Zhen", Gansu’s "Gan Wei", Inner Mongolia’s "Tian Fu Hetao", Shandong’s "Jining Li Yi" and Zhejiang’s "Sanqu Wei" and other multi-category regional public brands of agricultural products also rely on the historical and cultural characteristics of various places to strengthen the cultural, narrative, unique and intangible value premium functions of the brands, highlighting the cultural value of local high-quality local specialties.
At present, relying on rural regional ecology and high-quality local products to build agricultural brands, local characteristics and cultural values are highlighted, making local local products a golden business card for regional development and effectively promoting local economic development.
