By Gu Zhongyang, Chang Qin, People’s Daily
Internet has given a big leg up to poverty alleviation in Longnan, northwest China’s
Gansu province in recent years. In the demonstration city of poverty alleviation by e-
commerce, e-marketing is now a new “farm work” for local farmers.
Zhang Jiacheng is one of the many that have turned into anchors on livestreaming
platforms. Last year, the wholesale prices of apples have tripled. By showing his
followers around in his apple orchard on a livestreaming platform, the man earned
more than 200,000 ($28,239) yuan last year.
Since China promoted internet services in rural areas for poverty alleviation more
than three years ago, rural areas have seen constantly improving network
infrastructure.
With the help of the internet, distinctive agricultural products from rural areas are
reaching more places in the country, and high-quality education and medical
resources have become available in rural areas, revitalizing the countryside with
better internet connectivity.
Local government in Longnan has vigorously supported the e-commerce sector in
recent years. The city is home to 14,372 online shops and more than 33,000 individual
e-commerce businesses. In 2019, the average per capita income of impoverished
people in the city increased by 840 yuan spurred by e-commerce.
536 state-level impoverished counties are learning from Longnan’s experience in
relieving poverty through e-commerce, according to the State Council Leading Group
Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.
E-commerce now covers all 832 state-level poor counties across China. In rural
China, there are about 1,700 county-level e-commerce public service centers and
logistics and distribution centers, as well as more than 130,000 village-level e-
commerce service stations.
Besides, the country has trained more than five million people for e-commerce in
rural areas. Last year, the online retail sales of agricultural products reached 397.5
billion yuan, 1.5 times higher than that in 2016.
The deepening internet-driven poverty alleviation has been constantly optimizing
network infrastructure in poverty-stricken areas.
As of October 2019, more than 98 percent of China’s administrative villages had been
connected with optical fiber network and 4G network, and 99 percent of the
impoverished villages had been linked with broadband internet services. The internet
has not only boosted sales of agricultural products, but also profoundly changed the
lives of the poor people.
Besides, the internet has strengthened the role of education in poverty relief in rural
China.
Li Zimin is a junior middle school student in Hulu township, Guangzong county,
north China’s Hebei province. As she introduced, she now has two teachers – a top
teacher invited by the school for tele-education classes, and a local teacher assisting
the former in the classroom.
Li noted that in the college entrance examination four years ago, only one student in
her county was admitted to first-tier universities, and the figure jumped to 112 last
year.
Internet-based education is introducing more excellent education resources to
impoverished areas, such as top teachers, schools and education institutions, greatly
curbing the intergenerational poverty.
Telemedicine is another sector where the internet could play a role in poverty
alleviation. Recently, doctors from a hospital in Lingtai county, Pingliang of
northwest China’s Gansu province, conducted remote consultations via a video link
with a health center in the county’s Dudian township for a poor villager named Zhang
Hongcai in Zhangpo village.
“It’s convenient and economical to invite doctors from the county hospital to take part
in my treatment via the video link,” the farmer said happily.
Internet-based healthcare provides impoverished people with convenient access to
quality medical resources, playing an important role in preventing people from fall
into or slipping back to poverty due to illness.
However, to have the internet play a bigger role in poverty alleviation, China still
needs to bolster areas of weakness as soon as possible, for instance, the logistics.
Statistics indicate that 96.6 percent of the Chinese townships have established
delivery service stations, but such facilities are only available in 35 percent of the
villages. To bring more agricultural products out of the rural areas, a special project
was launched by the State Post Bureau, aiming to offer express delivery services to all
incorporated villages in three years.
The industrial chain should also be improved so that the internet could better facilitate
poverty alleviation. For instance, when the COVID-19 epidemic brought troubles to
the picking and sales of 170,000 tons of navel oranges in Zigui county, Hubei
province, local farmers and e-commerce platforms worked together for solutions.
“We adopted a video monitoring system to oversee the harvesting, sorting and
packing of the fruits. We also measured the size of the fruits with calipers and the
sweetness of the fruits with refractometers. Examinations were carried out once
abnormity was spotted,” said an executive of an e-commerce platform.
Alleviating the shortage of talents helps internet-empowered poverty alleviation go
further and steadily.
Juncheng county in east China’s Shandong province has established a school to
cultivate online influencers. By organizing regular training on making short videos
and livestreaming hosting, the school has exported a number of farmers that are adept
at using the internet, livestreaming and e-marketing. By integrating livestreaming
with offline industries, the county has sold its products to the whole country.
