Farmers rushing to e-commerce market: report

KUNMING - Farm produce sales via Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba topped 69.6 billion yuan ($10.7 billion) in 2015, up by 44 percent year-on-year, according to a report released on Wednesday by AliResearch, the research arm of the Alibaba Group.

The report, released at the first China Farm Produce E-commerce Summit in Mile, Yunnan Province, said Alibaba's e-commerce platforms have registered more than 900,000 farm produce sellers. More than 100,000 of them are from Guangdong province, with the second- and third-highest concentrations in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces.

Zhang Ruidong with AliResearch said e-commerce-based consumption from Guangdong topped 8 billion yuan last year, while those from north China's Gansu and Hebei as well as the eastern Anhui were growing fast.

Chinese online retailers, chief among them Alibaba and JD.com, have been trying to unlock the commercial potential of rural China. Alibaba and JD.com have both established infrastructure in rural areas and computer showcase areas to demonstrate to locals how to use e-commerce.

Alibaba said it has built more than 8,000 stations where villagers can shop on Alibaba's online marketplace and bring their own farm produce and local specialties to sell online.

According to AliResearch, in addition to selling farm produce, farmers also bought 5 billion yuan of farming materials via Alibaba's platforms last year, up 83.2 percent year-on-year.

During a month of Alibaba promotions on farm materials that ended on March 22, farmers from 14,000 villages in 27 provinces and regions bought more than 10 million items of farming materials, saving about 100 million yuan in production cost.