On March 21, in Zijin'gang Campus of Zhejiang University, the university’s Global Agriculture and Business Research Institute and the School of Management launched the opening ceremony of the Thousand Talents Program for Rural Revitalization. The ceremony was co-hosted by Yunji, YouChange China Social Entrepreneur Foundation, DQY Agricultural Technology, and Shengmu High-Tech Milk. Special guests to the ceremony include Prof. Luo Weidong, Vice President of Zhejiang University; Mr. Yan Shi, head of the Agricultural Management Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs; and Mr.Xiao Shanglue, founder and CEO of Yunji.

The Thousand Talents Program for Rural Revitalization focuses on jointly providing training courses for farmers. With the principle of “selection, upgrading and empowerment”, it aims to cultivate 1,000 modern farmers within three years and establish 100 models of agricultural supports. Yunji, a local social e-commerce unicorn and an important strategic partner of this program, will earmark 100 million yuan as a special supportive fund to promote the project and support farmers’ start-up plans.

● Talents are the basis for agricultural development

President Xi Jinping’s Report at the 19th CPC National Congress came at a time when history met the future. In this report, rural revitalization strategy was put forward for the first time and later became a buzzword of during the two sessions this year.

“Implementing the rural revitalization strategy is a major task, which requires holistic and scientific methods.” The strategy was further elaborated during the two sessions. The idea of “rural revitalization in five aspects” has been proposed, which emphasizes on prioritizing human capital development in talent rejuvenation tasks and building a strong team of rural talents.

Talents are the key to rejuvenating rural areas. In this new era, the rural revitalization strategy is fundamental to issues relating to agriculture, rural areas, and rural people, while talent is the focal point of the strategy.

To achieve rural revitalization, it is vital to break the bottleneck of insufficient talents, encourage more talents, technology and managerial expertise to rural areas, and provide enabling environment for local and introduced talents. The Thousand Talents Program for Rural Revitalization answers to the call of rural revitalization policy, aiming at supporting modern agricultural entities. Talents should be put first in this process. The Program aims to cultivate modern farmers in the Internet era, which is like transfusing stem cells with the genes of Internet to rural areas. With scientific and technological strengths of universities and research institutes and industrial advantages of e-commerce platforms, the Program therefore serves agricultural development and rural talent team building.

The program will attract multitudes of rural youths to return home and start their own businesses. It will cultivate more rural e-commerce professionals and help create a team of modern farmers who are enthusiastic, skilled and prudent. It will provide more job opportunities, create wealth, promote local business startup and innovation, and encourage the well-off to contribute to common prosperity. As a result, the program not only helps revitalize rural industries and alleviate poverty, but also helps secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

● School-enterprise cooperation will result in 1,000 modern farmers within 3 years

Yunji, a social e-commerce unicorn, is an important strategic partner of the Program. Currently there are more than 3 million registered store owners on the Yunji platform, and its VIP users have exceeded 20 million. The accumulated sales revenue in 2017 reached 10 billion yuan, and the accumulated tax payment exceeded 150 million yuan.

△ Xiao Shanglve, Founder and CEO of Yunji

Yunji will allocate 100 million yuan as a special supportive fund earmarked for the Thousand Talents Program. It will earnestly promote the Project and support rural start-ups in an effort to cultivate 1,000 modern farmers in three years, establish 100 models of agricultural supports, and help 300,000 farmers to get rid of poverty and become rich.

Farmers who are included in this Thousand Talents Program will receive entrepreneurship training from Yunji and the Global Agriculture and Business Research Institute of Zhejiang University. The training covers various topics including agricultural brands, rural e-commerce operations, standardized production and quality traceability, product design and blockbuster secrets, intellectual property right and trademark registration, and interpretation of targeted poverty alleviation policy. Those who have completed training sessions successfully will receive a certificate. Excellent students will have the opportunity to join the Zhejiang University Global Farmers Collaboration Network.

Practical training is another important part of the course. A dual tutor system will be adopted, which means each student will be fully guided by two tutors: a professor from the Global Agriculture and Business Research Institute of Zhejiang University, and a practitioner from either the e-commerce platform or an agricultural enterprise. At the end of the training session, after taking into consideration the academic and training results as well as tutor’s recommendations, excellent students will have the opportunity to enjoy in-depth guidance from the program partners.

● Converging complementary advantages of academia and business

The Thousand Talents Program for Rural Revitalization jointly launched by Zhejiang University and Yunji is beyond a mere training program for farmers that will fully promote the development of rural areas. It is also an innovative attempt to promote rural revitalization through cooperation between academia and business. This is a brand new talent training model in the era of "Internet +".

The Global Agriculture and Business Research Institute of Zhejiang University will provide intellectual support and platform for agricultural management research, agricultural talent training, industrial design of targeted poverty alleviation, and exchange between agricultural entrepreneurs worldwide.

On the other hand, in just two years, Yunji has become a dark horse in the e-commerce sector, with sales revenue reaching 10 billion. In 2017, it sold more than 1 billion yuan of agricultural products. Through its “100 Counties 1000 Products” project, 130,000 farmers living in poverty-stricken areas sold more than 2 million kilograms of agricultural products within half a year. Yunji even witnessed several miracles. For example, 12,500 kilograms unsalable potatoes were sold off within 40 seconds, and 13,000 kilograms of Fuping dried persimmons were sold off within 1 hour, all via Yunji platforms. Yunji’s special S2b2C business model provides a new solution for poverty alleviation through e-commerce. With selective procurement and social recommendation, it helps agricultural products to hit the market rapidly, and also helps in branding, standardization and e-commerce upgrading for those products. As a result, Yunji won the 2017 Outstanding Social Responsibility Award for Chinese Enterprises. Other prize-winners include Sinopec, Yili, Nestle and HNA Group.

For the next step, Yunji and Zhejiang University will give full play to their respective strengths, explore a new model of in-depth cooperation between industry, academia and research institutes, unleash the potential of talents in promoting agricultural development, and actively promote rural revitalization.

In the future, Yunji will integrate various elements including sales channels, warehousing, logistics and IT systems so as to support modern farmers who return to their hometowns. It will try to enhance the interconnectivity between brand, quality and industry, help more farmers in poverty-stricken areas to produce agricultural products and run business, increase their revenue, popularize e-commerce in rural areas, and promote high-quality agricultural products. Hopefully, the fruit of entrepreneurial success will be enjoyed by more farmers, and more supports will be accessible for those who want to change their lives.