research paper on agriculture and rural development

• Knowledge for Change

Agriculture and Rural Development

• WEBSITE World Bank Development Research Programs

Hanan Jacoby

Klaus Deininger

Thea Hilhorst

• GHAZALA MANSURI Lead Economist

Search Documents

You have clicked on a link to a page that is not part of the beta version of the new worldbank.org. Before you leave, we’d love to get your feedback on your experience while you were here. Will you take two minutes to complete a brief survey that will help us to improve our website?

Feedback Survey

Thank you for agreeing to provide feedback on the new version of worldbank.org; your response will help us to improve our website.

Thank you for participating in this survey! Your feedback is very helpful to us as we work to improve the site functionality on worldbank.org.

• Faculty of Arts and Sciences
• FAS Theses and Dissertations
• Communities & Collections
• By Issue Date
• FAS Department
• Quick submit
• Waiver Generator
• DASH Stories
• Accessibility
• COVID-related Research

Terms of Use

• Privacy Policy
• By Collections
• By Departments

Essays on Agriculture and Rural Development in Developing Countries

Citable link to this page

Collections.

• FAS Theses and Dissertations [5858]

Contact administrator regarding this item (to report mistakes or request changes)

Empowering Rural Revitalization: Unleashing the Potential of E-commerce for Sustainable Industrial Integration

• Open access
• Published: 02 March 2024

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Man Chen 1 &
• Yun’an Long   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0003-6758-5525 1  

143 Accesses

7 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

The rural revitalization strategy has spotlighted the agricultural industry as a pivotal avenue for national development. E-commerce, as a novel business paradigm, presents both opportunities and challenges to this sector’s evolution. This study endeavors to navigate the trajectory of e-commerce within rural revitalization by amalgamating literature review and case analyses. It seeks to uncover the sales channels offered by e-commerce platforms for agricultural products, subsequently elevating the value proposition of these products and propelling rural economic growth. Findings underscore the pivotal role of e-commerce in rural revitalization. Leveraging e-commerce platforms to bolster the agricultural industry presents innovative avenues and strategies. Nonetheless, challenges loom over these platforms, encompassing issues related to agricultural product quality, logistics, and distribution. Thus, a strategic imperative emerges to fortify logistics infrastructure, enhance agricultural product quality, institute robust personnel training initiatives, and catalyze e-commerce advancements to foster the revitalization and expansion of the agricultural sector.

Similar content being viewed by others

How digital technologies reshape marketing: evidence from a qualitative investigation

Federica Pascucci, Elisabetta Savelli & Giacomo Gistri

Digital transformation: a review, synthesis and opportunities for future research

Swen Nadkarni & Reinhard Prügl

The role of digitalization in business and management: a systematic literature review

Esther Calderon-Monge & Domingo Ribeiro-Soriano

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

The development of rural industry is the top priority of rural revitalization. The development of rural industry can realize the overall progress of the rural economy, fundamentally improve the living standard of rural residents, and improve the level of rural production (Cai et al., 2021 ). Rural revitalization strategy is an important part of socialism with Chinese characteristics’ cause in the new era, and it is the strategic layout of building a socialist modern country in an all-round way. Rural revitalization means through policies, funds, technology, etc. to promote the development of rural economy, society, and culture and realize the comprehensive development strategy of urban–rural integration, agricultural modernization, rural industrialization, and farmers’ citizenization. The core of rural revitalization is to solve rural development problems, including agricultural production, rural economy, farmers’ income, rural social security, and rural cultural construction.

Industrial integration (Chen & Wen, 2021 ) is one of the important ways to realize rural revitalization. China’s rural income generation has been heavily dependent on the primary industry for a long time. Farmers are more likely to plant, process, and sell agricultural products in the traditional mode of small-scale agricultural production. Such a production mode is arbitrary, lacks communication with the demand market, and has serious information asymmetry problems, making it challenging to meet the latest requirements of China’s actual agricultural products market in time and effectively. On the one hand, it is necessary to introduce modern technology into rural areas, form an industrial chain from the production to the sale of agricultural products, reorganize the original agriculture industries, and improve farmers’ modern production and sales ability. On the other hand, we should innovate the agricultural industry chain, making agriculture integrate with other industries, especially with the secondary industry and the tertiary industry, thus improving the efficiency of resource allocation in rural areas through cross infiltration, enriching agricultural functions, and promoting the reform of rural agricultural industry.

E-commerce (Chao et al., 2021 ) is a powerful tool for rural revitalization. Li et al. ( 2021 ) forward that the digital economy can realize agricultural digitization through scientific planning before production, exemplary management in production, and efficient promotion after production. Among them, new agricultural product sales formats such as rural e-commerce live delivery with goods can enable traditional agriculture and improve sales performance. The No. 1 document of the CPC Central Committee in 2019 puts forward the goal of developing and strengthening rural industry, which requires the implementation of a digital village strategy and the in-depth promotion of “Internet + agriculture” so that e-commerce can help agricultural products better break the shackles brought about by geographical location and information asymmetry. Town-level governments and e-commerce enterprises actively respond to the call of the central government, and rural e-commerce has achieved a certain degree of development (Wang et al., 2021 ). According to the report on the development of rural e-commerce in China (2019–2020), more than 30,000 agricultural e-commerce platforms have been constructed in China. In addition, as shown in Fig.  1 , in the first half of 2020, under the catalysis and test of the new epidemic situation, rural online retail has achieved an increase of more than 7%, totaling more than 760 billion yuan, and the sales volume is close to 15% of the national online retail. Therefore, further research on how e-commerce (Xu and Zheng, 2021 ) can better facilitate the development and integration of rural industries in the context of rural revitalization is of urgent practical significance to improve the agricultural industrial chain and improve farmers’ income.

Rural retail sales in the first half of 2014 (data source: big data in business)

When it comes to the role of e-commerce in rural revitalization, numerous studies have highlighted its positive impact and potential benefits. Karine et al. ( 2021 ) pointed out in their research that e-commerce provides an opportunity for rural areas to break away from traditional economic models, facilitating the sale and promotion of agricultural products. This innovative capacity offers farmers a broader market channel, thereby increasing their sources of income. However, some studies also highlight certain challenges and obstacles. For instance, Tim et al. ( 2021 ) emphasized the lack of infrastructure and digital skills in rural areas, which could constrain the development of e-commerce. Additionally, Huang et al. ( 2021 ) suggested that inadequate policies and regulations are significant factors limiting the growth of e-commerce in rural areas. Their research indicated that the lack of effective policy support and regulation could lead to unfair competition and risks. On the other hand, Phelps et al. ( 2022 ) proposed the potential of e-commerce in creating employment opportunities in rural areas. Their research indicated that the development of e-commerce platforms could stimulate local economic growth and promote the emergence of small and startup businesses, thus creating more job opportunities. However, these opportunities may also bring new challenges, such as employee skills training and management. Overall, e-commerce plays a crucial role in rural revitalization, but to fully harness its potential, concerted efforts among governments, businesses, and communities are needed to address issues related to infrastructure, policies, and skills.

The analysis reveals a theoretical potential for rural e-commerce to foster the coordinated advancement of processing, logistics, marketing, and allied industries. However, practical limitations, particularly high operational costs, constrain most small-scale e-commerce operators. Consequently, these operators primarily concentrate on production and rudimentary marketing efforts, unable to galvanize other facets of the industrial chain. This discrepancy signifies an existing gap between rural e-commerce and comprehensive industrial development, especially within the broader context of rural revitalization.

Hence, this study pivots towards scrutinizing the integration and supportive role of rural e-commerce in industrial development. It delineates specific e-commerce assistance strategies from two focal viewpoints: vertical integration and horizontal integration. This analytical approach seeks to bridge the gap by proposing comprehensive strategies aimed at aligning rural e-commerce with industrial development aspirations.

Development Mode of Rural E-commerce

Rural e-commerce refers to the online sales of agricultural products, agricultural and sideline products, rural tourism, rural handicrafts, and other rural resources by means of information technology, such as the Internet, which promotes the development of the rural economy. As a new business model, the core of rural e-commerce is to break through the information barriers between urban and rural areas, promote the circulation of rural resources and enhance their value, and realize the transformation and upgrading of rural economy through information technology means such as the Internet.

The development of rural e-commerce has also shown a diversified sales model. The traditional e-commerce platform model can no longer meet the needs of consumers, so rural e-commerce began to try new sales models, such as social e-commerce and live e-commerce. These new sales models cannot only improve sales efficiency but also enhance consumers’ buying experience. In addition, the development of rural e-commerce also presents diversified marketing strategies. Traditional marketing strategies can no longer meet the needs of consumers, so rural e-commerce began to try new marketing strategies, such as KOL marketing and content marketing. For example, JD.COM Farm is an agricultural e-commerce platform under the JD.COM Group, which is committed to providing consumers with high-quality agricultural products. By cooperating with farmers, JD.COM Farm has established its own agricultural industrial chain to control the entire process from planting and breeding to sales. At the same time, JD.COM Farm also improves the quality and brand image of agricultural products through technological innovation and brand building, enhancing consumer trust and recognition. The successful experience of JD.COM Farm shows that the e-commerce platform can establish its own agricultural industrial chain by cooperating with farmers to improve the quality and brand image of agricultural products.

In another scenario, an e-commerce platform selling specialty agricultural products globally encounters obstacles in quality and logistics. Dealing with diverse products with unique quality benchmarks from different regions or countries makes establishing standardized quality parameters challenging. International shipping involves navigating through customs, regulations, and longer transit times, elevating the risk of spoilage or damage to products. Furthermore, some specialty products are seasonally available, complicating inventory management and demand forecasting. To address these challenges, the platform implemented stringent quality checks, certifications, and third-party inspections to ensure product consistency and compliance with quality standards. They also established regional warehouses closer to key markets to reduce transit time, ensuring fresher deliveries, and utilized data analysis to predict demand patterns for better inventory management and procurement planning.

Rural E-commerce 3.0 Mode

As shown in Fig.  2 , the rural e-commerce 3.0 (Yu, 2020 ) mode is a business model put forward by the company to solve the problems of “life service to the countryside” and “inventory into the city.” Based on the Internet and e-commerce, it provides high-quality services through three-tier partners, realizing the coordinated allocation of urban and rural resources. Village-level partners directly connect with villagers and collect information on village goods. The township partners are responsible for the coordination of multiple modules, and the township partners are responsible for life services, administrative services, logistics express delivery, agricultural products uplink, business incubation, etc. County-level partners focus on product promotion and sell local products to the vast land of China, who are also responsible for attracting investment and building their own small commodity banks. Cooperate with local businesses to carry out local commodity operations. Lishui, Zhejiang Province, has built more than 1200 rural e-commerce service stations by the end of 2018, becoming a leading rural life service platform in China, with a noticeable demonstration effect.

Rural e-commerce 3.0 mode

“One Village, One Product” Mode

“One village, one product” is an industry with local characteristics and high added value, which is based on the village and local resources. Galutu Town, Wushen Banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is one of the villages and towns listed in the “one village, one product” demonstration village list of the Ministry of Agriculture. Ordos has always been famous for its fine wool sheep, which has reached the national leading level. The fineness of the wool is uniform, the mutton flavor is fragrant, the color is beautiful, and the sheepskin is thick and soft. Galutu Town, Wushen Banner, Ordos City, has always adhered to the local characteristics of Ordos fine wool sheep as the core, vigorously promoted the fine wool sheep breeding and related by-products processing and other links, and constantly extended the delicate wool sheep industry chain. The introduction of e-commerce sales to help the rural economy take off. Various e-commerce platforms have also set up rural characteristic plates to help each township and county focus on local characteristics and improve sales performance. Taobao’s website has set up a beautiful countryside section to guide consumers to appreciate the beauty of rural areas, such as walnuts in Yijun, Shanxi, passion fruit in Xunwu, Jiangxi, and tea in Pu’an, Guizhou.

When it comes to managing agricultural product quality and logistics on e-commerce platforms, there are numerous challenges. For instance, in the case of fresh produce, a regional e-commerce platform specializing in local farm-fresh products faces issues concerning quality control and logistical complexities. Ensuring consistency in freshness and quality upon delivery is challenging due to variations in product quality from different farms and seasonal fluctuations. Coordinating logistics for perishable goods demands precise timing and temperature-controlled transportation, posing difficulties in overcoming last-mile delivery challenges and ensuring product freshness during transit. Additionally, effectively managing inventory to prevent overstocking or shortages is crucial, yet the unpredictability of supply, such as weather conditions and harvest cycles, leads to inventory imbalances.

Industrial Cluster Development Mode

Industrial cluster refers to the phenomenon that competitive enterprises and related organizations in an industry gather in a specific region. Xie ( 2005 ) concluded that the advantage of the cluster is that it can obtain professional production factors more cheaply, and the participants can complement each other and reduce the entry threshold of new enterprises. “Taobao village” is a typical manifestation of rural e-commerce industry agglomeration. Under the rural governance, Shibutou Village, Punan Street, Pujiang County, Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province, introduced e-commerce into the rural housing renovation and established the Jiangnan e-commerce park. As of October 2020, more than 150 online businesses have settled in the park, covering an area of more than 60,000 m 2 . With the successful establishment of the e-commerce Park, Shibutou village has been transformed into a wealthy village with collective assets of 200 million yuan and an average annual income of 40,000 yuan for farmers through cluster industrial development. In addition, as of September 2020, there are 5425 Taobao villages in China, an increase of 26% over the end of 2019, which sells agricultural products to all parts of the country through the Internet, significantly increasing the income of migrant workers, driving local farmers to start their own businesses, encouraging migrant workers to return home for employment, and helping farmers get rid of poverty and poverty (Huang et al., 2022 ).

Retail Mode of Social E-commerce

Social e-commerce is one of the important innovation directions of e-commerce: the integration of traditional e-commerce and social networks. Relying on interpersonal communication and social platforms, it realizes information transmission and brand asset accumulation through social interaction between users and users, brands, platforms, and other subjects and ultimately promotes consumers’ purchase from the brand loyalty of consumers. Rural e-commerce enterprises can deliver goods in the form of e-commerce live broadcasts and invite county magistrates, farmers, and KOL as salesmen so that consumers can face the terminal goods for the first time, improve their cognitive fluency of consumers, and finally complete the purchase. Rural e-commerce enterprises can also cooperate with local supermarkets so that, through advanced holographic image technology, the product information can be displayed comprehensively, and the social interaction with consumers through artificial intelligence technology can bring an immersive experience to consumers and guide consumers to purchase.

Current Situation of Rural E-commerce and Industry Development Under the Background of Rural Revitalization

Rural revitalization needs the support of rural e-commerce, and rural e-commerce also needs the promotion of rural revitalization. Specifically, rural revitalization needs the support of rural e-commerce mainly in the following aspects: First, promote the sales of agricultural products. Rural e-commerce can sell agricultural products and other rural resources online by means of information technology such as the Internet, breaking the traditional sales channels and promoting the sales of agricultural products. At the same time, rural e-commerce can also improve the quality and efficiency of agricultural products and increase farmers’ income through logistics and distribution services. The second is to promote the development of rural industries. Rural e-commerce can promote the development of rural industries through online sales and offline services. For example, selling agricultural products online can promote the development of the agricultural industry; online sales of rural tourism products can promote the development of tourism; online sales of rural handicrafts can promote the development of the handicraft industry. At the same time, rural e-commerce can also improve the efficiency and competitiveness of rural industries through logistics and distribution services. The third is to promote rural information construction. Fourth, rural e-commerce can promote rural informatization through information technology such as the Internet. For example, by building a rural e-commerce platform, you can improve.

Farmers’ information literacy and e-commerce skills to promote rural information construction. Through the construction of a rural logistics distribution network, the efficiency and quality of rural logistics distribution can be improved, and the rural informatization construction can be promoted. The fifth is to promote the integration of urban and rural development. Rural e-commerce can promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas through information technology such as the Internet. For example, by selling agricultural products online, we can break through the information barrier between urban and rural areas and promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas. Selling rural tourism products online can promote the integrated development of urban and rural tourism; online sales of rural handicrafts can promote the integration and development of urban and rural cultures.

The Trend of Scale Is Obvious

The continuous emergence of e-commerce villages indicates that China’s rural e-commerce has embarked on the road of large-scale development. If more than one-tenth of the families in a village have opened active e-commerce online stores, and the transaction volume of the village exceeds 10 million yuan, the village will be judged as Taobao village. According to the data of Ali Research Institute in 2020, as of September 2020, the transaction volume of more than 700 Taobao villages has exceeded 100 million. The development of e-commerce in rural areas is not a powerful indicator of the development of rural enterprises. Many villages have focused on their characteristics, where local products with distinctive marketing have transformed small-scale agricultural production into large-scale local characteristic industrial production, realizing the development of rural industry. For example, the production and marketing of jujube has been focused on in the village of Topluk Township, Aksu City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Every household is scrambling to become a jujube farmer, and jujube has become a pillar industry to increase local income and become rich. The village has also been selected for the list of “one village, one product” demonstration villages and towns. Table 1 shows the top 10 online retail of rural e-commerce cooperatives in all provinces in 2019. As shown in Table  1 , compared with other provinces, Jiangsu Province ranks first in the proportion of online retail sales, proportion of online retail sales, and number of rural e-commerce cooperatives in all three aspects.

Live Commerce Is Expanding the Market Rapidly

Live commerce is one of the most apparent sales methods for e-commerce development and industrial expansion under the social e-commerce mode. According to the data from the China International E-commerce Center Research Institute, the total scale of China’s live e-commerce industry will exceed 400 billion yuan in 2019. Satisfactory results have been achieved by county heads of many counties. The average transaction time from county to county is 600 min. Professional anchors and farmers are the backbone of live delivery. In one night, Weiya achieved four months’ sales results in Zhashui County, Shangluo City, Shaanxi Province. With the unique advantages of a strong sense of presence, sufficient authenticity, rich customer experience, good purchase interaction, and diversified sales scenes, live commerce has a unique advantage in brand cultivation, greatly accelerating the speed of rural brand building, laying a good foundation for the growth of rural industry, and providing a continuous driving force. Brand building not only means a higher profit margin but also a larger market scale and production scale, which can help rural optimize industrial structure and realize industrial development.

Consumption Demand Guides Production Step by Step

In the past experience, the most considerable difficulty in the industrialization of agricultural products was that the target market scale of most agricultural products produced in rural areas was small, the market demand was unstable, and there was a certain lag in rural cognition of the market. Li et al. believed that one of the major problems of traditional agriculture lies in the information asymmetry among farmers, consumers, and intermediaries. Due to the high transaction cost and the poor information communication between the rural producers and the market demanders, the farmers’ willingness to invest in planting is low, and the industrialization of agricultural products is always complex, which hinders the rural industrial development and rural revitalization. E-commerce has broken the information barrier between traditional consumers and growers, so consumers can directly communicate with growers in the comment area of commodity sales or in the process of live broadcasting to explain their own needs. E-commerce enterprises conduct user portraits through big data analysis to promote the agricultural products they are most likely to like, realize accurate recommendations, and improve marketing efficiency. The vast market space represented by e-commerce can guarantee farmers’ scale planting income, promote the farmers’ desire for large-scale planting, and promote industrial development and agglomeration in rural areas (Liu et al., 2020 ).

Analysis of the Problems of Rural E-commerce’s Contribution to Industrial Development Integration Under the Background of Rural Revitalization

Although the construction of rural e-commerce and the promotion of the integration of rural industrial development have achieved certain results, there are still some problems. Assessing the actual impact of e-commerce on the revitalization of the agricultural industry involves a multifaceted approach. Firstly, one can analyze the effect on agricultural product sales by comparing data. This includes examining the growth in sales revenue, the expanded market reach, and the diversification of sales channels post the introduction of e-commerce platforms. Secondly, conducting consumer surveys and analyzing consumer behavior is crucial. This entails investigating consumer preferences, such as their inclination towards purchasing agricultural products through e-commerce and their perceptions regarding product quality, pricing, and convenience. Furthermore, engaging agricultural producers and gathering their feedback is essential. Understanding the extent of farmers’ adoption of e-commerce and changes in their production and sales methods, as well as the impact on income and market access, contributes to a comprehensive evaluation of its role in agricultural revitalization. Lastly, qualitative analysis is significant. This involves examining the practical effects of e-commerce in improving product quality, reducing intermediaries, and enhancing the traceability of agricultural products. Integrating these methodologies provides a more accurate assessment of e-commerce’s tangible impact on agricultural revitalization, offering robust support for decision-making and development.

Uneven Quality of Products Sold by E-commerce

Currently, most of the products sold by rural e-commerce are produced and planted by farmers. Farmers lack the awareness or ability to product quality control in the production process, resulting in a low degree of standardization of the products produced. There are significant differences between different farmers and even between the same farmers. The significant differences between agricultural products cannot meet the standardization requirements of rural industrial development, which increases the upgrading of agricultural production to industrialization and limits the scale expansion of rural industry. Small-scale production makes it difficult for farmers to form long-term and stable upstream and downstream coordination through e-commerce and weakens farmers’ bargaining power to a considerable extent, which is not conducive to Rural Revitalization. Table 2 shows the negative examples of agricultural products sold by e-commerce, which include live sales experiences of Luo Yonghao, Simba, and Weiya.

Higher Operation Cost of Agricultural Products

The lagging development of standardization and branding of agricultural products is an important issue in the current agricultural development in China. Although some achievements have been made in agricultural modernization in recent years, there are still some problems in the standardization and branding of agricultural products. First of all, the standardization level of agricultural products is not high. Due to the dispersion and small scale of agricultural production in China, the standardization of agricultural production is low. In the production process of agricultural products, there is a lack of unified standards and norms, which leads to uneven product quality and makes it challenging to meet market demand. At the same time, there are some difficulties in the popularization and application of standardization of agricultural products. Farmers lack knowledge and awareness of standardized production and lack technology and management experience in standardized production, which is one of the reasons for the lagging development of standardization of agricultural products. Secondly, the degree of branding of agricultural products is low. Branding of agricultural products is an important means to improve the added value and market competitiveness of agricultural products, but the degree of branding of agricultural products in China is low, and brand awareness and reputation are not high. This is mainly due to the lack of investment in brand building of agricultural products, the lack of professional talents in brand management and marketing, and the short time of brand building of agricultural products, which makes it difficult to form the stability and durability of brands. Finally, the lagging development of standardization and branding of agricultural products is also related to the mismatch between market demand and consumer demand. With the improvement of people’s living standards and the change of consumption concept, consumers have higher and higher requirements for the quality, safety, and health of agricultural products. In contrast, the development of standardization and branding of agricultural products lags, which makes it challenging to meet the needs of consumers and the market.

Low Development of Agricultural Digitization

Digitalization is an important direction and solid foundation for China’s industrial development, and the construction of digital countryside is also one of the important goals of rural revitalization. The development of new technologies such as Industry 4.0, big data, and artificial intelligence has caused a data revolution storm in all levels of society, where urban e-commerce uses data to infer consumer preferences and optimize product structure. However, the construction of relevant hardware facilities in rural areas is relatively weak, the data collection of agricultural production is less, and the analysis and application ability of relevant data is poor, so it is difficult to scientifically analyze and summarize the actual situation of rural e-commerce. In addition, the integration of rural industrial development should not only expand the scale but also optimize the structure and enhance efficiency. The development degree of agricultural digitization is too low, and the systematic management and structural optimization of various links in the industrial chain, such as production, storage, and marketing, will be restricted, and the rural industry will be trapped in the traditional state for a long time.

Weak Links in Rural E-commerce Infrastructure

As a vast market, rural areas have great potential and business opportunities. However, due to the weak rural logistics infrastructure, scattered distribution network, and high logistics cost, these problems have seriously restricted the development of rural markets. The infrastructure construction in rural areas is relatively backward, and the transportation facilities such as roads and bridges are not perfect, which brings great difficulties to logistics transportation, resulting in low transportation efficiency, long logistics time, and relatively significant losses in the transportation process. In addition, due to the complex geographical environment and inconvenient transportation in rural areas, many areas cannot achieve fast and convenient logistics distribution. In this case, logistics enterprises need to invest more workforce, material resources, and financial resources to ensure the normal transportation of goods. On the one hand, the coverage of rural logistics is limited. Unlike the city’s extensive asphalt roads and concentrated residential mode, rural residents live relatively scattered, and roads also have some primitive mountain roads; some roads are even allowed for one person. If rural e-commerce operators want to deliver goods to transport companies in large quantities, they will face the test of cost or time. They will stop selling when the quantity of goods sold exceeds their affordability. On the other hand, it is difficult to guarantee the timeliness of rural logistics. The city’s commodity supply chain and logistics industry chain are relatively mature, and consumers are used to getting their own goods, especially fresh agricultural products, within 2 to 3 days after placing an order. However, in rural areas, more than 70% of villages do not have e-commerce distribution sites. The lack of express delivery sites also means the lack of logistics transportation routes, which limits the sales scope of fresh agricultural products in rural e-commerce, and agriculture cannot take advantage of rural e-commerce to upgrade to industrialization.

Lack of Brand Awareness in Rural E-commerce

Brands cannot only improve the price of commodities but also increase the identification of products, improve the added value of products, and enhance the competitiveness of products. A successful brand of agricultural products can provide experience for other rural areas to create products. But now, many rural areas are relatively weak in brand awareness. In the sales process, it did not pay attention to the establishment of brand culture accumulation of brand equity and did not deeply explore the profound value of products—some of the worst business shoddy hurt consumers to rural products of trust and affinity. Once the product lacks the brand effect, the industry is challenging to expand and integrate.

The Strategy of E-commerce in Promoting the Integration of Rural Industry Development

Jiang ( 2016 ) proposed five integration paths for rural industrial integration development: upward integration, downward integration, industrialization cluster integration, functional expansion integration, and service-oriented integration. This paper, further from vertical and horizontal integration of two perspectives, put forward a specific e-commerce power strategy.

Vertical Integration

E-commerce makes rural areas break through the backward mode of production, get rid of the single production function, develop rural agriculture into a comprehensive industry covering agricultural-related fields such as processing and sales of agricultural products, realize the vertical integration of agricultural industry, increase the source channels and stability of rural income by extending the agricultural industry chain in rural areas, and realize the revitalization of rural areas. At the same time, the vertical integration of the agricultural industry can also significantly reduce the production cost and increase the added value of products.

Strengthen the Regulation and Assistance

The local government should take the initiative to assume the organization and leadership function and expand the scale of rural e-commerce and related industries. The local government can issue relevant e-commerce product sales requirements, standardize the basic quality standards of agricultural products sold locally, strengthen supervision, and improve the standardization degree of agricultural products. The local government can also invest in improving the rural e-commerce infrastructure construction, opening up the broken road in the village, turning the mountain road into the road, and building the rural e-commerce distribution station so as to ensure that the logistics network can cover the whole village and improve the timeliness of logistics, which ensures the smooth operation of rural e-commerce. For a small number of farmers who lack startup funds, the government can also provide special low-interest loans after approval to solve the initial funding problems.

Digital Agriculture Assists Agriculture

The e-commerce platform has rich experience and gratifying results in the use and analysis of big data. At the same time, as an intermediary platform directly connecting rural e-commerce operators and consumers, the e-commerce platform has a unique ability to master the supply and demand data. In addition to pushing goods according to their preferences in the sales process, digitization should enter the production process; use modern information technology to manage production categories, output, and inventory; and balance the peak valley changes in demand so that rural e-commerce can provide the goods consumers need, and improve the overall efficiency of the agricultural industry.

Building a Local Brand of Agricultural Products

Agricultural development is based on agricultural products. The biggest dilemma of agricultural products lies in substantial homogeneity and obvious substitutability. The construction of local product brands can help agricultural management implement a differentiation strategy, improve the bargaining power of upstream and downstream industries, and coordinate the synchronous development of upstream and downstream. Villages can determine their own competitive products and e-commerce development mode based on the category and characteristics of agricultural products, combined with industrial development goals and path planning to name the brand. In the sales process, rural e-commerce should carry out publicity around the brand name and product characteristics, and the slogans used should conform to the brand tonality.

Standardizing and branding agricultural products in the e-commerce landscape involve various aspects, from quality control to marketing strategies. Firstly, quality assurance and certification are paramount. Implementing stringent quality control measures and obtaining certifications (such as USDA Organic or Fair Trade) are essential to assure consumers of product quality and authenticity. Secondly, establishing traceability and transparency is crucial. Utilizing technologies like block chain to offer end-to-end traceability allows consumers to track the product's journey from farm to table, fostering increased trust. Simultaneously, creating standardized packaging and labeling that convey product information, certifications, and brand identity, along with using high-quality imagery, videos, and comprehensive product descriptions online, helps showcase the product’s uniqueness and advantages, bolstering brand influence. Lastly, encouraging and displaying genuine customer reviews and ratings aids in establishing credibility for product quality.

Horizontal Integration

Industrial horizontal integration is the innovation of the agricultural industry chain, which integrates agriculture with the secondary and tertiary industries, enriches the participation scene of agriculture, and opens up new possibilities for agricultural development.

Integration with Tourism Industry

The integration of agriculture and tourism is the most common way of industrial horizontal integration, which has been verified by successful experience in practice. The failure of traditional farmhouse entertainment mostly comes from homogenization. At present, a large number of e-commerce platforms headed by Taobao have tourism-related enterprises settled in, and consumers have developed the habit of viewing strategies and arranging travel itineraries on e-commerce platforms. Rural areas should fully integrate regional advantages, develop leisure tourism projects on the basis of their own characteristic culture and products, and put them on the shelves of rural e-commerce stores. In addition to the traditional picking of consumer agricultural products, rural areas can also develop local characteristics of residential accommodation, local transportation experience, and other projects so as to enrich the travel experience of consumers.

Integration with Telecommunication Industry

Smart agriculture is an important driving force for rural revitalization. Consumers are putting forward higher and higher requirements for the quality of online shopping products. Driven by market demand, rural e-commerce can enable agricultural producers to present abundant agricultural product information to consumers through active cooperation with the telecommunication industry. Tanjiawan, Xinchun village, Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province, has successfully achieved the traceability of cloud agriculture. The development of AR/VR technology makes it possible for consumers to experience cloud agriculture. Agriculture can transmit local information such as topography, landforms, and soil to telecom companies to simulate planting sites. In addition, rural e-commerce can sell cloud agricultural experience times, which provides different possibilities for the agricultural industry to generate income.

In the pursuit of evolving and innovating the rural modern e-commerce sector, it is imperative to bolster financing mechanisms to ensure the steadfast progression of the rural economy. Certain rural areas within China exhibit relatively low investment in rural e-commerce, thereby impeding industrial development (Tang and Zhu, 2020 ). Effectively propelling the comprehensive development of rural e-commerce necessitates robust financial backing for agricultural economy advancement. Given the developmental disparities in rural e-commerce, implementing effective measures and pioneering methodologies becomes essential to attain equilibrium between rural e-commerce and the agricultural economy (Zheng et al., 2019 ).

It is noteworthy that presently, numerous rural regions advocate for the expansion of rural e-commerce. However, there exists a shallow understanding and perception of rural e-commerce, accompanied by a mechanistic approach to policy implementation. Mere online postings of local agricultural products without comprehensive promotional channels limit product visibility and impede market penetration (Liu et al., 2021 ). The developmental trajectory has yet to harness the full potential and distinctive traits of e-commerce, resulting in suboptimal operational strategies, diminished market competitiveness, and a struggle to secure a foothold in the fiercely competitive online landscape.

The extensive analysis provided emphasizes the inexorable trajectory of e-commerce in China’s rural regions amidst the rapid evolution of the internet era. The robust progression of rural e-commerce has significantly invigorated market dynamism, broadened market scope, reconfigured industrial product compositions, and augmented the income streams of rural inhabitants. These advancements strongly align with the imperatives set forth by the national strategy for rural revitalization.

Moving forward, the developmental trajectory of rural e-commerce in China necessitates a meticulous integration of local realities, as highlighted by studies (Xia, 2022 ; Shen et al., 2020 ). This integration mandates a strategic convergence involving industry revitalization, tourism enhancement, rejuvenation of agricultural products, and other pragmatic rural revitalization strategies, alongside precise poverty alleviation methodologies. Augmenting grassroot management expertise and nurturing talents well-versed in rural e-commerce are crucial endeavors. Additionally, fostering a complete rural e-commerce industry chain and cultivating an enabling environment for e-commerce development require concerted efforts through policy subsidies, project support, and other strategic interventions.

Regarding effective collaboration models, public–private partnerships are pivotal. Governments collaborating with e-commerce platforms and agricultural enterprises to set standards and guidelines for product quality, packaging, and certification is crucial. Data sharing and analysis are also vital. Collaborations between governments, e-commerce platforms, and agricultural producers to collect and analyze data on consumer preferences, market trends, and supply chain efficiencies enable informed decision-making. Furthermore, governments can provide financial support, subsidies, or tax incentives to encourage agricultural enterprises to adopt standardized practices aligned with e-commerce requirements. Education and training are significant aspects as well. Jointly providing training programs and workshops for farmers helps meet quality standards, comprehend e-commerce market demands, and effectively utilize digital tools. Lastly, governments can enact policies and regulations supporting fair trade, consumer protection, and sustainable agricultural practices, fostering mutual benefits for e-commerce platforms and agricultural producers.

Theoretical Implications

The paper highlights the positive impact of e-commerce expansion on rural revitalization, emphasizing challenges related to agricultural product quality and logistical efficiency. It delves into strategies involving vertical and horizontal integration to support rural e-commerce development. The direct-to-consumer approach for agricultural products through e-commerce platforms is identified as a means to elevate product value and increase farmers’ income.

Managerial or Policy Implications

Continuing the rural revitalization strategy warrants a focus on enhancing rural e-commerce’s overall competitiveness. This involves accelerating logistics infrastructure development, nurturing rural e-commerce talent, and prioritizing standardized and branded agricultural products in e-commerce for safety and quality assurance. Strengthening collaboration between e-commerce, agricultural enterprises, and government entities emerges as a key strategy for advancing the agricultural industry’s revitalization.

Ideas for Future Research

Future research avenues should explore the impact of improved logistics infrastructure on rural e-commerce, the efficacy of talent cultivation in advancing e-commerce, and the outcomes of standardized agricultural product integration in e-commerce platforms. Additionally, studying the collaborative dynamics between e-commerce, agricultural sectors, and governmental bodies to further understand their combined role in revitalizing the agricultural industry would be beneficial.

Data Availability

The data can be obtained according to the requirements.

Cai X, Fang K, &Zhang Q. (2021). The choice of farmers’ industrial organization mode under the background of rural revitalization, Statistics and decision , 37 (15). (In Chinese).

Chao, P., Biao, M. A., & Zhang. (2021). Poverty alleviation through e-commerce: Village involvement and demonstration policies in rural China. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 20 (4), 998–1011.

Chen Y, &Wen T. (2021). Mechanism innovation of digital economy and rural industry integration development. Agricultural economic problems : 1–11. (In Chinese).

Huang, L., Huang, Y., Huang, R., Xie, G., & Cai, W. (2022). Factors influencing returning migrants’ entrepreneurship intentions for rural E-commerce: An empirical investigation in China. Sustainability, 14 (6), 3682.

Article   Google Scholar  

Huang, L., Xie, G., Huang, R., Li, G., Cai, W., & Apostolidis, C. (2021). Electronic commerce for sustainable rural development: Exploring the factors influencing BoPs’ entrepreneurial intention. Sustainability, 13 (19), 10604.

Jiang, C. (2016). The path and focus of promoting the integrated development of rural primary, secondary and tertiary industries. Zhongzhou Journal, 05 , 43–49. (in Chinese).

Google Scholar  

Karine, H. A. J. I. (2021). E-commerce development in rural and remote areas of BRICS countries. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 20 (4), 979–997.

Li H, &Li L. (2021). There are ten trends in enterprise digital transformation. Economic Information Daily , (007) (in Chinese).

Liu, M., Zhang, Q., Gao, S., & Huang, J. (2020). The spatial aggregation of rural e-commerce in China: An empirical investigation into Taobao Villages. Journal of Rural Studies, 80 , 403–417.

Liu, T., He, G., & Turvey, C. G. (2021). Inclusive finance, farm households entrepreneurship, and inclusive rural transformation in rural poverty-stricken areas in China. Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, 57 (7), 1929–1958.

Phelps, N., Wang, C., Miao, J. T., & Zhang, J. (2022). E-commerce: A platform for local economic development? Evidence from Taobao Villages in Zhejiang Province, China. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research, 1 (3–4), 251–268.

Shen, J., Zhu, Q., Jiao, X., Ying, H., Wang, H., Wen, X., & Zhang, F. (2020). Agriculture green development: A model for China and the world. Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering, 7 (1), 5–13.

Tang, W., & Zhu, J. (2020). Informality and rural industry: Rethinking the impacts of E-Commerce on rural development in China. Journal of Rural Studies, 75 , 20–29.

Tim, Y., Cui, L., & Sheng, Z. (2021). Digital resilience: How rural communities leapfrogged into sustainable development. Information Systems Journal, 31 (2), 323–345.

Wang, Z., Zhu, H., & Lei, B. (2021). High-quality development of rural e-commerce industry cluster: Connotation, dilemma and key path. Rural Economy, 03 , 110–118. (in Chinese).

Xia, J. (2022). Juggling ecumenical wisdoms and xenophobic institutions: Framing and modelling China’s telecommunications universal service and rural digitalization initiatives and policies. Telecommunications Policy, 46 (2), 102258.

Article   MathSciNet   Google Scholar  

Xie, Z. (2005). A review of research on industrial cluster theory. Economic Review, 05 , 118–124. (in Chinese).

CAS   Google Scholar  

Xu, L., & Zheng, Y. (2021). Path analysis of rural e-commerce helping rural revitalization. Journal of Graduate School, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 02 , 109–120. (in Chinese).

Yu, X. (2020). The bottleneck and countermeasures of rural e-commerce development in China. Business Economics Research, 24 , 72–74. (in Chinese).

Zeng, Y., Guo, H., Yao, Y., & Huang, L. (2019). The formation of agricultural e-commerce clusters: A case from China. Growth and Change, 50 (4), 1356–1374.

Download references

This work was funded by the National Social Science Foundation of China (project number 19BGL266) and the Sichuan Province Circular Economy Research Center (project number XHJJ-2209).

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

School of Economics, Xihua University, Chengdu, 610039, China

Man Chen & Yun’an Long

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

Conceptualization and research methods, Man Chen; data collection and analysis, Shiwei Jiang; investigation, Yun’an Long; and writing, Man Chen.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yun’an Long .

Ethics declarations

Ethical approval.

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Consent to Participate

The authors declare that all the authors have informed consent.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Chen, M., Long, Y. Empowering Rural Revitalization: Unleashing the Potential of E-commerce for Sustainable Industrial Integration. J Knowl Econ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-024-01813-3

Download citation

Received : 22 November 2023

Accepted : 02 February 2024

Published : 02 March 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-024-01813-3

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Rural revitalization
• Industrial integration
• Agriculture
• Rural areas
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

AGRICULTURE SECTOR AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

The present research paper has focused on the role of the agriculture sector in rural development of India. The secondary data were used and it was obtained from various sources like annual reports of agriculture and farmers welfare department, ministry of rural development, census reports, and NSSO data. Agriculture sector significantly contributes to the positive improvement of the economy generally and rural development particularly. India is an agricultural country with 195 million hectares is gross cropped area, 141 million hectares of land as net sown area, the highest percentage of land under cultivation in the world. The country accounts for 17.7 percent of the world's population and ranks in the second largest populated country. The country has about 68.8 percent of the population living in its rural areas and the only source of their livelihood is agriculture and allied activities. The total production of food grains was increased from 259.29 million tonnes in 2011-12 to 284.95 million tonnes in 2018-19. The contribution of agriculture in gross value added at basic prices has continuously fallen in India from 17.72 percent in 2012-13 to 14.09 percent in 2019-20. The share of agriculture in employment declined from about 69.7 percent in 1951 to about 54.6 percent by 2011. The amount of agricultural credits are very much insufficient and the private non-institutional sources still remained a significant contribution in supplying credit to the farmers and rural peoples. To achieve sustainable rural International Research Journal of Human Resource and Social Sciences ISSN(O): (2349-4085) ISSN(P): (2394-4218) Impact Factor 5. development through agricultural practices, it needed the more than four percent growth rate in agriculture, provision of quality and adequate quantum of inputs such as quality seeds, fertilisers, and their timely supply besides electricity, socioeconomic inclusion policy and participation of the rural people in development strategies are the key concerns of the policy.

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024