Internet Helps Chinese Farmers to Sell Potatoes

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, November 07, 2002

Internet Helps Chinese Farmers to Sell Potatoes

The widespread influence of the Internet on Chinese people even extends to farmers in China's landlocked western regions.

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The widespread influence of the Internet on Chinese people even extends to farmers in China's landlocked western regions.

Thanks to the Internet, finding buyers is no longer a headache for potato growers in Dingxi, a prefecture of northwest China's Gansu Province, one of China's three largest potato growing bases.

He Qingji, dubbed the "potato king" of Longxi County in the prefecture, is very grateful for the worldwide web.

"In the past, I'd go to great pains to find buyers, mostly through acquaintances and by making telephone calls. Even if I found some in the end, the prices tended to be very low", said He.

"But with the help of the Internet, finding buyers is easy now," he said.

By surfing the Internet, he has found customers in Malaysia andSingapore, for example. His potato sales to those two countries now amount to between 40 million yuan (about 4.82 million US dollars) and 50 million yuan (about 6.02 million dollars) a year.

Of the websites he regularly visits, his favorite is the "Xingnongwang", a pro-agriculture website set up by the provincial meteorological bureau. The website offers a wide range of information about agriculture, including market analysis, where tofind buyers and sellers, new production techniques and prevention and killing of insects.

Wang Juntang, a farmer in Dingxi County, said he no longer worried about potato sales. "I know all about the market from Xingnongwang," said Wang.

All counties in Dingxi Prefecture, which annually produces morethan 4 million tons of potatoes, now have access to the website. Its influence is spreading across the province.

Latest statistics show 56.6 million Chinese people nationwide use the Internet via their home computers, a number second only tothe United States.

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