Women's Federations in Chongqing Help Women Farmers Boost Sales

Women's federations in Chongqing Municipality mobilized women entrepreneurs and women volunteers to expand online channels to help local women and impoverished households sell agricultural and sideline products amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

In Jinguo Village, Kaizhou District, local citrus fruit farmers planted over 166.67 hectares of oranges. Due to the outbreak of the epidemic, they could not find customers. 

After receiving a request for help on February 11, the Women's Federation of Kaizhou District responded immediately, contacting a local woman entrepreneur to help boost orange sales for the farmers online. 

In only two days, an online platform was set up. As of now, 2,162 boxes of oranges, with the weight of 10,810 kilograms, have been sold with the sales income reaching 60,536 yuan (US $8,611.95).

Hu Yaowen, a woman entrepreneur running an e-commerce business in Changshou District, purchased five tons of oranges from villagers of the district's Jianfeng Village, greatly easing the worries of local farmers. "Thanks to Hu, the farmers' whole year of hard work was not in vain," said Liu Xinghai, Secretary of the Party branch of Jianfeng Village.

Hu also collected information about other slow-selling agricultural products in the region and took actions to help more villagers sell their products.

In Rongchang District, Zhao Jingli, part-time vice-president of the district's women's federation, made use of her e-commerce platform to help villagers in some towns of the district open up markets for sales of rabbits, white lotuses and chickens. To increase sales, Zhao also launched high-quality and community-friendly services that deliver the purchases to communities.

Yang Mei, delegate of the 12th National Women's Congress, March 8th Red-banner Pacesetter of Chongqing Municipality, and Secretary of the general Party branch of Shuangliu Village in Wujia Town, promoted the sales of vegetable and fruit packages, including cabbages, oyster mushrooms and oranges, based on the online platform of  the collective economic cooperative in the village. 

Yang also set up 12 unmanned sales stations in urban communities, allowing local residents to pay for fresh vegetables by scanning a code. The village supplies 2,000 kilograms of seasonal vegetables of over 20 kinds every day, and more than 150 packages of vegetables are sold at each station every day.

In Tuqiao Town, Tongliang District, Li Man, general manager of Xinlu Organic Farm, helped surrounding farmers promote strawberry sales through her company's WeChat store, other e-commerce platforms, and community group purchases. Since the Spring Festival, she has helped sell nearly 170,000 yuan (US $24,184.1) of strawberries through the Internet.

The Women's Federation of Yubei District made full use of its own online sales platform for the online ordering and delivery of agricultural products. The platform is also available for urban and rural women in the district to open online stores of agricultural products for free.

The women's federations of Jiangbei and Fuling districts have widely used their official WeChat accounts, friends' circles, and WeChat groups to help women farmers sell oranges, chickens, ducks and eggs.

The women's federations of Xiushan County and Shapingba, Hechuan and Jiangjin districts have taken action to help local women sell agricultural and sideline products through e-commerce platforms and WeChat mini programs.

(Source: China Women's News/Translated and edited by Women of China)