Fields have become livestream rooms, and local delicacies have become viral hits. Now, with just a phone and a stand, farmers can become livestreamers, and new premium agricultural products can directly reach consumers. However, livestream e-commerce is by no means a simple traffic business that "becomes a hit overnight." Behind the booming sales is a strong support system for cold chain logistics, quality and safety, skills training, and deep processing. Only by integrating a complete closed loop of production, processing, quality control, logistics, and sales can rural e-commerce livestreaming shift from extensive traffic sales to a new stage of standardized, branded, and industrialized high-quality development, injecting continuous new digital economic momentum into rural revitalization.
Lv Zhigang entered the lily enterprise processing workshop to inspect the lily processing process
Check the growth of the loofah
Upgrading the cold chain and delivering fresh agricultural specialty products directly
E-commerce livestreaming focuses on direct shipment from the origin and direct delivery of fresh products. Consumers have high demands for taste and freshness of agricultural products. An efficient and stable cold chain transportation system is the core guarantee for livestreaming sales of fresh agricultural products.
To bridge the "last mile" of live-streaming e-commerce transportation and ensure fresh agricultural products "leave villages, sell far, and preserve freshness," our city has continuously increased investment in rural cold chain infrastructure, building a full-chain cold chain transportation network including pre-cooling at production sites, storage and preservation, full-process temperature control, and direct trunk lines, greatly expanding the sales radius of agricultural products and better leveraging live-streaming e-commerce to connect with the national consumer market.
As June arrives, Yuzhong is bustling with activity. Across the vast fields, vegetable fields are lush and green, and various plateau summer vegetables are bathed in sunlight and mountain breeze, full of vitality. Vegetable farmers skillfully harvest and load into baskets, while cold chain trucks loaded with "elm flavor" head out across the country.
As the birthplace of Lanzhou Plateau summer vegetables and the largest production distribution center in Northwest China, Yuzhong County has taken the opportunity of establishing an industrial park to build a three-dimensional distribution network combining origin + cold chain + terminal. Freshly picked vegetables enter the cold chain system immediately, undergoing efficient pre-cooling, sorting, and packaging, and are delivered nationwide in a constant temperature environment, maximizing the freshness and taste of the vegetables and significantly extending shelf life.
The Lanzhou Plateau Summer Vegetable Storage and Cold Chain Logistics Standardization Construction Project implemented by Gansu Longshang Hongtong Trading Co., Ltd. is based in Yuzhong, serves the entire province, and radiates nationwide. It directly addresses the industrial bottlenecks of plateau summer vegetables that "cannot be stored, transported, or sold at high prices." Through standardized construction of storage and cold chains, it promotes quality improvement, efficiency enhancement, and brand upgrading of the specialty vegetable industry, creating a practical model for the high-quality development of cool-type vegetables in Northwest China. The project covers a total area of 51 mu, with 42 intelligent fresh-keeping warehouses built, equipped with German Bitzer fully automatic refrigeration units and intelligent temperature control systems. Using variable frequency technology, cooling energy efficiency is improved by 15% to 20%. Precise temperature zones are set for different categories such as broccoli, baby cabbage, and sweet beans, extending the freshness period of plateau summer vegetables from 7 days to 21 to 28 days.
Stepping into the facility agriculture area of Huazhuang Town, Honggu District, the dwarf tomatoes in the greenhouses hang like pearls on the branches. Farmer Zhang Yuan loads freshly picked tomatoes onto a tricycle and transports them to the vegetable cold storage, working at a leisurely pace. "Nowadays, you don't rely on the weather when growing vegetables, but on orders." He patted the dirt on his hand and said.
Zhang Yuan's confidence stems from the district's systematic reshaping of the agricultural industry, and cold chain logistics has addressed the most critical shortcomings—vegetable sorting and packaging in Wangjiazhuang Village and cold chain storage in Honggu Village. Each project has been implemented, turning the slogan of "pre-cooling after harvest and full cold chain transportation" into reality.
Strictly adhere to safety bottom lines, so you can buy local products with confidence
The weather is clear, and the lilies in the distant mountains are budding. Lv Zhigang, Deputy Senior Agronomist at the Qilihe District Agricultural Technology Extension Station, put on sterile work clothes and entered the company's processing workshop to inspect the lily processing process and learn about its quality and sales price.
Lü Zhigang mainly engages in certification and supervision of organic products, green food, and agricultural product geographical indications. "Whether a lily processing enterprise's production status, production scale, and processing environment meet relevant regulations and requirements all require on-site investigation and evaluation." Lv Zhigang said he has always paid close attention to whether the company's planting base uses certified prohibited pesticides, whether there are pollution sources nearby, and whether the soil and air meet certification standards. He reports the investigation results step by step to relevant authorities. Only by implementing these strict steps can the added value of Lanzhou's lily industry products continue to rise, giving consumers peace of mind.
"Today, we collected 13 samples including melon, cauliflower, and cauliflower, all of which met the standards after testing." Wang Xiaojun, Director of the Agricultural Supervision Center at the Xigu District Agricultural Technology Extension Station, said. The district focuses on key periods, key entities, and key varieties, regularly conducting agricultural product quality and safety monitoring and testing to precisely identify and resolve safety risks. Since the beginning of this year, focusing on major holidays and key production enterprises, a total of 179 batches of routine monitoring of agricultural products such as lilies, strawberries, yellow chives, and tomatoes have been completed, with all test results qualified. At the same time, the city assisted the Agricultural Supervision Center in completing 15 batches of supervision and 24 routine inspections, including 5 special inspections for lilies. Through normalized, full-coverage sampling monitoring, they effectively prevent agricultural product quality and safety risks from the source.
Quality is the core competitiveness of e-commerce livestreaming. As rural livestreaming e-commerce develops on a larger scale, issues such as uneven product quality, lack of traceability systems, and excessive pesticide residues have become hidden risks to industry development. Some retail consumers lack quality control awareness in live-stream sales, with no screening, no testing, and no standards for sales models, which not only harm consumer rights but also easily lead to the collapse of regional agricultural product brand reputations.
To regulate the rural livestream e-commerce market, our city's market supervision and agriculture and rural affairs departments have worked together to build a full-process agricultural product quality and safety control system, safeguarding livestream e-commerce and establishing a high-quality, safe, and trustworthy image of local products, so they can be sold with confidence and bought with confidence.
Skills training is carried out, and digital technology is rooted in rural areas
Talent shortages are a key factor restricting the development of rural e-commerce livestreaming. Most farmers are familiar with agricultural production but lack professional skills in livestream operations, traffic placement, short video editing, and after-sales maintenance. In the early stages, livestreams often face issues such as stiff scripts, single scenarios, poor traffic, and inefficient conversion, making it difficult to achieve large-scale, regular sales. To this end, counties and districts in our city have joined forces with e-commerce platforms, vocational schools, and logistics companies to regularly carry out localized, hands-on public live-streaming training, precisely cultivating rural livestreaming talent teams, injecting lasting human vitality into rural live-streaming e-commerce, and truly rooting digital technology in rural areas and serving agriculture.
Gaolan County conducted hands-on teaching on livestream operations, short video creation, and product promotion techniques, combining local specialty agricultural products to enhance trainees' practical e-commerce skills. Participants also discussed topics such as brand promotion, production-sales matchmaking, and e-commerce development bottlenecks, building consensus on development.
Yongdeng County hired professional teachers to provide detailed explanations on short video shooting techniques, editing tool usage, live-streaming sales processes and script design, product listing and detail page optimization, building upstream channels for agricultural products, fan operations and customer maintenance, order processing and logistics matchmaking, e-commerce compliance and risk avoidance, aiming to improve the e-commerce operation skills of female women in the county, broaden employment and entrepreneurship channels, and help rural women, returning entrepreneurs, and unemployed women achieve "fingertip entrepreneurship and income growth at home." ”。
"I used to not know what to say during livestreams, but after attending several training sessions organized by Lanzhou City and Xigu District, I realized that livestream sales also require marketing skills." Yang Banghong, head of the Banghong Farmers' Professional Cooperative in Xigu District, said.
Born in the 1980s, Yang Banghong grew up in the mountains and has long focused on lily and fritillaria cultivation, as well as under-forest native chicken farming. Due to limited offline sales, she actively expanded online sales channels by attending e-commerce training, growing from never livestreaming to becoming a full-time livestreamer. Not only did her own agricultural products sell well online, but she also encouraged surrounding farmers to band together for sales.
Yang Banghong told reporters that each training session involves instructors explaining live streaming scripts, scene setup, short video shooting, traffic operations, after-sales handling, and compliant sales, using a model of theoretical instruction + on-site practice + one-on-one guidance, which has benefited her greatly.
Seasonal products that extend the industrial chain have become bestsellers
Kushui Rose has been cultivated in Yongdeng for over 200 years, belonging to the medicinal and edible category with high practical value and a good market reputation. Previously, the rose industry mainly relied on raw material exports, but since 2023, local companies have seized the opportunity of online live streaming, relying on major platforms to directly sell processed products and fully open up new online sales channels.
Lu Shiwei, General Manager of Lanzhou Jiuxiang Rose Biotechnology Co., Ltd., explained that 10,000 jin of fresh flowers can produce one kilogram of rose essential oil, which is why Kushui Rose essential oil is known as "liquid gold." To improve the quality of rose essential oil, this year their company developed an 8-year Chenghua Hydrosol. This Chenghua Concentrate is based on the 8-year storage of rose hydrosol, gradually transforming from weakly acidic and neutral components into mildly alkaline components, which are better absorbed by the body.
Entering the Hexing Lily Processing Factory in Qilihe District, workers are efficiently boxing and weighing fresh lily petals. Li Zhenglong, the person in charge, told reporters that boxed fresh lilies come in two sizes: 100g and 125g. Lilies collected from the fields are first preliminarily sorted, then entered the selection workshop for manual picking, washed, and manually packaged, and finally treated with nitrogen-filled fresh-keeping equipment before being shipped to major supermarkets nationwide.
In the past, rural livestream sales mainly focused on original ecological primary agricultural products. Fresh fruits, raw grains, and bulk dried goods had short shelf lives, low added value, and severe homogenization, relying only on low-price competition to attract traffic, with thin profit margins making it difficult to form long-term industrial advantages. To improve the quality and efficiency of rural livestreaming e-commerce and build industrial brands, it is essential to rely on refined processing of agricultural products and promote product transformation and upgrading.
Li Gang, head of the e-commerce department at Lanzhou Mijiashan Lily Co., Ltd., deeply relates to this. His team includes more than a dozen people operating stores on multiple platforms such as Tmall, Douyin, JD.com, and Pinduoduo. When 2014 just started, there were only fifty or sixty orders a day; now, daily orders stabilize between 800 and 1,000, and at peak times, they can reach 2,000.
"The advantage of e-commerce is that one point has many aspects, reaching consumers all over the country." Li Gang said. Relying on the core production area advantages of Lanzhou lily with national geographical indication products, their products sell well and prices have steadily risen, with increases ranging from 10% to 20% in the past two years. (Reporters: Dong Yongqian, Zhou Dongnan)