In recent years, perhaps the money of other industries is hard to earn, and there are a large number of industrial and commercial capital in agriculture. From Ding Bao pigs to Lenovo's first planting project, blueberries have blossomed in Qingdao; Zhu Xinli from Huiyuan has doubled as a fruit grower. The vegetable farmers started their organic career in the suburbs of Beijing. Wang Jianlin of Wanda spent hundreds of millions of dollars to grow vegetables in Yanqing, and Wuhan Iron and Steel also claimed to raise pigs... The agricultural sector gradually became hot.

Industrial and commercial capital has entered the agricultural field. There is the temptation of land, the guidance of policies, and the attraction of the future development space of agriculture. The benefits will certainly be seen by the entrants. Agriculture has ushered in opportunities for development and is also a critical period for change. However, this is a brand new thing. From the country to the enterprise, from policy to law, from entrepreneur to peasant will all face a series of new situations and new problems. In this wave, entrants must have been entangled in. These companies and investors may see a little more benefit, less difficult issues, and may be blindly optimistic about the future. Now, based on the phenomena I see and foreseeable problems, I propose that the heat of agricultural investment must cross four barriers. These Kaner, due to the different circumstances of different companies, have caused various difficulties for various companies. The purpose is not to give cold water to agriculture, but to provide reference and inspiration.

The first hurdle: the scale of the ridge

The long period of return on investment in the agricultural industry, the unpredictable factors (weather, pests, etc.), and the high risk are the characteristics most people know, but there is no clear concept for large-scale requirements. It is very wrong to think that there is more money to do, and there is no money or less to do.

The agricultural industry, especially modern agriculture, eliminates the one-to-one decentralized business model. It requires that it must reach a certain scale.

Only with a certain scale, planting and processing can achieve high efficiency, production and quality can be standardized, and achieve a unified and efficient; only with a certain scale, products will have an impact on the market, branding makes sense; only with a certain scale, it is possible Connect with the modern food industry and maintain the consistency of products. Only with a certain scale, can we dock with the modern and large-scale business, and information platforms, trading platforms, and distribution channels can be fixed and established. Otherwise, it will not be worthwhile.

In the United States, where agriculture is highly developed, its industrial concentration and scale have also been rising. In 1950, the total number of farms in the United States was 5.65 million. By 1998, the number of farms had decreased to 2.91 million, a drop of 61%. The American farm economy has become more and more stable, much less than the high and low prices of agricultural products in China.

Scale is the essence of modern agriculture and brand agriculture. If it still stays in the self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy and turns around in the farmer's market, the products that are produced and the brands that are created must be self-entertaining.

“I missed you” Zaoye achieved sales of over 300 million yuan in 2008. The demand for raw materials on this scale cannot be met by Mengzhuang Town, the hometown of dates, and even Xinzheng as a whole. If we do not hold the source in our hands, the shortage of raw materials and the control of people will occur. Shi Jubin established the Xinzheng Ao Xing Industrial Co., Ltd. ("the good predecessor" date predecessor) as soon as possible in the country layout, established a number of large date source bases with the "company + base + farmer" model, to ensure the company And the brand's continued development.

The scale of hustle is actually a policy hurdle. In order to achieve scale, it is necessary to bring together production materials such as land and labor, and it must be determined by economic means. It must rely on policies and administrative methods. Land property rights cannot be used as a barrier. There are many risk factors here. I hope that entrepreneurs will be careful.

Under the premise of not touching the fundamental system of land, planning a base and signing an order contract with farmers is a realistic choice. However, the risk of farmers' exposure to risk and the quality and quality are still high.

The scale of the hurdle is sometimes the strength of the can. Lenovo Holdings’s Jiawo Group has successively acquired Qingdao Wolin Blueberry Fruit Industry Co., Ltd., Sichuan Zhongxin Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., and five planting companies in Chile, one after another in Shandong, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Henan, Hubei and Anhui. A large-scale blueberry and kiwifruit demonstration garden has been established, and the first batch of planting bases in South America and Australia have been established. This is something that many companies cannot do because the future of modern agriculture is becoming more and more obvious. The fight for scale and strength is an important and even decisive force.

The scale is sometimes a standard hurdle. Without a significant scale, companies, products, and standardization are meaningless. The more concentrated the market, the more prominent is the issue of standardization, and the more standards are determined by the most powerful and most market-affected companies and products.

The second hurdle: the way of branding

The brand is the starting point of modern agriculture and a symbol of modern agriculture. The emergence of modern agriculture in the market is the branding of agricultural products. However, as we all know, brands are lagging behind in many agricultural products. This is why, because of the unique nature of non-deep processed agricultural products, there are considerable difficulties. Many people do not have the branding methods here.

After years of research and practice, I have discovered that there are "two major difficulties and one misunderstanding" in the non-deep processing of agricultural products as brands: low-value vulnerable packaging is difficult, and highly homogenous differences are difficult. A misunderstanding: Taking the place of production as a brand, resources are shared.

Difficult one: low value vulnerable packaging difficult.

"Low value, vulnerable, poor preservation, difficult to pack" is the first difficulty of making a brand of agricultural products, the most typical is non-deep processing of vegetables, fruits, fresh meat, aquatic products and so on.

For low-value, fragile non-deep-processed products, consumers do not generate brand demand for such products when their living standards are not high. At the same time, this kind of product is not good for freshness, it is difficult to industrialize packaging, and transportation, display and marking are difficult to achieve. Therefore, as long as these objective factors exist, branding is very difficult.

With consumption upgrades, technology upgrades can meet the high demands of consumers. Milk pasteurization is very easy to achieve preservation and packaging upgrades; eggs in the box, each egg has its own independent safe location, the damage rate is very low. The realization of these technologies did not add too much cost. On the contrary, it reduced the bad goods rate, saved the cost, and made brand identification easier. Therefore, the categories of milk and eggs are now entering a deep branding stage.

Difficulties II: Hard to differentiate evenly.

As we all know, differentiation is the eternal magic of brand marketing, and is the ultimate pursuit of marketers. However, some agricultural products are born with weak differences, which I call highly homogenous.

There are two situations of high degree of homogeneity: one situation is that there is little difference in the inherent quality between similar products, and there is a high degree of convergence in terms of nutrient composition, traits, and taste, and even more headaches for marketers are that they are extrinsic. There is no essential difference in concept and there is no separation between them. For example, what is the difference between the same species, the Red Fuji produced in Shaanxi and the Red Fuji produced in Yantai? I am afraid that the vast majority of people cannot say it. The other case is that although some products have differences in their intrinsic quality, they are not very obvious in appearance. If you do not use the instrument, ordinary consumers do not eat or taste, it is difficult to distinguish with the naked eye. For example, potato, potato produced in Beijing and potato produced in Inner Mongolia, can people generally see it with the naked eye? Perhaps only when the potatoes are cooked will it be known that the potato that is easily boiled and blossomed is potato grown in Inner Mongolia because of its high starch content. For another example, Red Fuji apples have more than 30 varieties. If consumers do not eat or taste, there is no way to know which is brittle and which is sweet. This kind of judgment is only about the same, varies from person to person and subjective. Apples and potatoes are typically highly homogenized products.

What to do in the face of this difficulty? Externalize internal differences!

A misunderstanding: Taking the place of production as a brand, resources are shared.

Among the non-deep processed products in agricultural products, there are many native products, famous products and even treasures, Northeast ginseng, Northwestern China, North China jujube, Chinese chestnut, East China Jinhua ham, Longjing tea and hairy crabs, Ganzhou navel orange, Guangdong and Guangxi Shatian pomelo. These are the hardest-hit areas where there is no product or brand.

The appearance, growth, and development of famous native products are produced, grown and celebrated based on unique local climate, geography, or historical and humanistic factors. Therefore, these products have a strong dependence and relevance on the place of origin in brand marketing. This has emerged two extremely common phenomena: First, the brand name likes to use the name of origin + category, such as Jinhua ham, West Lake Longjing; Second, the ownership of the brand is unclear, the origin of resources sharing. This is not a brand, this is a great misunderstanding!

Over the years, due to the above two difficulties and a misunderstanding, many agricultural products and food companies have taken many detours as brands, and some have not yet found a way out.

There are also companies relying on financial resources, using a brand in a period of time to launch a variety of category products, seemingly bustling, like to build a product kingdom, in exchange for the prosperity of the surface, high corporate awareness and product purchase rate It is very low, which is totally incomprehensible or ignores the law of brand creation and growth.

The third hurdle: the candid team

Modern agriculture is a highly compounded industry. Professor Nijimura Imamura, an emeritus professor at the University of Tokyo in Japan, even called it the sixth industry. Imamura Narayama proposed that not only agricultural crops (primary industries), but also agricultural products processing (second industry) and agricultural products and processed products (tertiary industries) should be cultivated in order to achieve more value-added. The "sixth industry" has found the true essence of modern agriculture.

Modern agriculture is a large agriculture with primary industry, secondary industry, and tertiary industry connected. It is an industrialized agriculture controlled by the key points of the industrial chain. It is an advanced value-added agriculture with advanced technological management, and it is a fully-modernized food with large circulation or deep processing. Industry is a trustworthy and traceable brand of agriculture, and it is an emerging industry where industrialized talents and management talents are extremely useful! From this perspective, the enterprises that can control modern agriculture must be: have a profound understanding of modern agriculture, have full experience in modern large-scale industrial production management, have sufficient integration of social resources, and have rich experience in modern brand marketing. Creativity and communication power, with ample reserves for high-end management talent!

Therefore, to enter the modern agricultural industry, it is particularly necessary to innovate from ideas and concepts to industrial structures, management models, and talent structures. Among them, talent is the most important factor. The original talents in the field of agricultural industrialization in our country are mostly policy implementation type, base construction type, technology research and development type, and production management type. There is an extremely lack of marketing type and resource integration talents. Modern agriculture needs the latter two and compound talents most.

Liu Chuanzhi said, “The agricultural issue, including food safety, is an industrial issue. From the beginning of the source, to production, to transportation, to processing, to sales, if you can control it well at all stages, you can guarantee the high quality and safety of agricultural products. In agriculture, we have the advantage to be able to do it. First, we have long-term plans to avoid profit, and we have very long-term plans for investment. Second, we have very strong management capabilities. The conventional agricultural production model is the management of farmers. It is very difficult. To be an agricultural factory requires a strong cultural foundation and a strong management foundation. Third, and most important, we have an outstanding leader."

The fourth hurdle: the control of the industrial chain

In the boom of modern agriculture, the whole industry chain model is very attractive, and the great non-full industry is not the trend of modern agriculture, forming a strong model of the entire industry chain.

The so-called full-industry chain is the fashion expression of “high-level integration” and is a form of industrial value chain, which is neither advanced nor fashionable. So do the whole industry chain is a good way to survive and develop branded agriculture?

1. Do the advantages and disadvantages of the entire industry chain.

A look at their own conditions and competitive environment.

First of all, mega companies such as COFCO do the entire industrial chain and have a solid base of source resources. Other companies may not have this condition. COFCO is the oldest and most powerful enterprise engaged in agricultural and food import and export trade in China. It has been the leader of the national agricultural trade such as wheat, corn, rice and sugar for several decades. Its industry has been expanding from the trade of grain, oil and food. It is the top 500 Fortune magazine companies in the United States, ranking among the top 100 food industry companies in China, in the fields of raw materials for agricultural products, foods and oils, fruits and vegetables, beverages, wine, sugar, feed and even real estate hotels and finance.

Second, COFCO's entire industry chain concept is proposed to respond to the need for "domestic competition internationalization." Internationally-renowned multinational grain companies such as ADM, Cargill, Bunge, Louis Dover, etc. adopt the full-industrial chain model. From planting-production-logistics-trading, they cover almost all chains, and transplant the entire model to China. . "This is a relatively mature and relatively effective business model. For COFCO, it can be long-term," said Ning Gaoning. In the face of powerful multinational giants, COFCO decided to use "chains" to avoid individual combat operations. In particular, it hoped to make breakthroughs in the end markets of fast-moving consumer goods such as food and beverages, and realize the transition from a resource-based enterprise to a terminal-brand enterprise. .

Open up the industrial chain, span the two major industries of modern agriculture and modern food industry, and take it from top to bottom. The ideal prospect cannot be described as beautiful. Enterprises that want to take the entire industrial chain road must first examine whether they have the basic conditions.

Second, look at the market conditions.

For areas where product competitiveness is highly dependent on raw materials such as grain, oil, meat and eggs, etc., it may be a more appropriate strategic model to make the entire industry chain. However, for other non-living necessities of other consumer goods, such as beverages, alcohol, candy, and so on, it is precisely the “struggling” of pushing the entire industry chain. In these areas of fast moving consumer goods, first, there is sufficient competition in each category, there is a strong brand, the market structure is stable, and the overall industry chain strikes, and the odds are very low. Second, the key point of competition in these areas is not the whole industry chain, but in the industrial chain. At some point. For example, “Jinliufu” does not produce wine itself, but it can succeed through its ability in channel and brand marketing. COFCO's full industry chain in various subdivided areas is strategically debatable.

2, do the purpose and key point of the whole industry chain.

Doing the whole industry chain is not the key and the whole of the table food industry, and it is not the purpose. To do the whole industry chain, control is the soul of the entire industry chain. Doing the whole industry chain is a table, and it is this point to control the chain.

The integration and operation of the industrial chain is a large and complex project. The “full industry chain” model requires a balanced development of various industrial chains. However, in actual operations, the integration of various subsystems such as enterprise decision-making, business management, employee teams, and cultural concepts is a great challenge. The longer the front, the more links, the higher the cost, and the greater the chance of errors. In fact, the total efficiency has declined significantly in geometric terms with the increase of vertical links. Ning Gaoning admitted frankly, "The biggest difficulty in developing the entire industry chain lies in the convergence between the industrial chains. Under the current circumstances, some industrial chains have indeed not achieved the degree of matching and integration."

This is not a question of ability, but a rule. This is the industry giant like COFCO, but also has to focus on the key areas of the industrial chain.

The world's largest British brand, Lipton, does not plant a tea tree. They purchase large quantities of original tea in China and then mix it into Lipton tea, which is a key point in the industry. A brand is equivalent to 2/3 of the output value of the Chinese tea industry.

In 2000, Zhu Xinli wanted to sell Huiyuan, which was a classic circumstantial evidence case. "Well done well" why Huiyuan also sold, the reason behind the first generation of business founders led the company to reach a certain stage, it can not go no longer. Zhu Xinli envisages contracting the industrial chain and focusing energy and financial resources on the upstream. Zhu Xinli said: “The upstream resources of the fruit juice industry are the core commanding point of the entire industry chain, and it is the most central part. We put more energy and financial resources on the upstream of fruit drinks, and actively develop the transformation and deep processing of Chinese fruit varieties. This is Huiyuan's established strategic layout."

The competitors facing companies that are going to be the entire industry chain are precisely the international giants known throughout the industry chain, so you must find ways to find and establish advantages at certain points in the industry chain.

The clients that I serve at work must have core resources or advantages. It is very easy to succeed in controlling one or more key points around this resource and advantage. After Xiangxiang Hi-Tech Co., Ltd. entered the market and took over the Xiangcun Black Pig, it firmly seized the advantage of owning local pig breeds with national-level independent intellectual property rights, and was determined to make high-end pork unshakable, focusing on the force of personnel and brand marketing. The introduction of Fulai as an out-of-the-box brain has rapidly changed the situation in which the company is confused and has rapidly emerged in Hunan.

In addition, in the brand building, variety and target market choices, enterprises that engage in the entire industry chain should not be attacked in multiple ways. Each brand cannot be over-extended. To be a brand is not to burn money, but to succeed, you must follow the basic principles of marketing and branding.

Looking at China in the next 20 years, China looks at agriculture, agriculture sees brands, what brands look at? Look safe! In the historical opportunity period for upgrading the brand upgrading of consumption upgrading industry, China's agricultural industry and food safety will surely usher in brand-new changes, and a group of entrepreneurs with new responsibilities and consciences will also be born. This is the historical node and it is bound to Appeared, I believe.