The Formation Of Agricultural Taobao Village Cluster And Its Impact On Smallholders' Income

The circulation and marketing of agricultural products is an important link that restricts China's agricultural development and peasant income.E-commerce can be an effective approach of removing the difficulties of circulating and selling products.In recent years,with the improvement of support conditions,China's e-commerce in agri-food sector and rural areas has grown very rapidly.Taking Shuyang County in Jiangsu Province as an example,this paper conducted a case study and quantitative analyses on the Agricultural Taobao Village Cluster(ATVC)with data collected from interviews and questionnaires on the basis of theoretical analyses,mainly focusing on the following four issues:Why can ATVC be formed in the areas like Shuyang County?Which smallholders are more likely to adopt e-commerce in the same industry and region?Whether can peasant income presents a significant positive change after e-commerce adoption?Are there some differences of income change among peasants caused by the adoption of e-commerce?Thus,the conclusions of this paper were finally made based on the research for answering these questions.First of all,the formation of ATVC results from the joint effects of seven factors which are industry foundation,e-commerce platform,network infrastructure,logistics condition,entrepreneurial talents,government,and market demand,and its entire process includes four links that are technology introduction,technology diffusion,quality crisis,and industrial agglomeration.With the help of rural social networks and imitation in reducing adoption cost and risk and increasing prospective earnings,e-commerce as a new technology can diffuse quickly among smallholders.Industrial agglomeration happens subsequently due to the benefits coming from the deepening of labor division and geographical concentration.During the formation of ATVC,it is possible for a certain extent of quality crisis to emerge because of some peasants' race to the bottom and opportunistic behavior.Those e-commerce clusters represented by ATVC are exactly typical cases of regional e-commerce development,a systematic project whose significance lies in realizing the transformation and upgrade of the entire agricultural industry.However,a sound e-commerce ecosystem consisting of multitudinous relevant subjects is quite needed,so as to build a relationship of mutual promotion between online and offline interactions.Secondly,peasants' adoption of e-commerce is the synthetic action of multiple variables.Under the condition that other factors remain unchanged in the same region and industry,it is found that the variables including age,family population,the proportion of agricultural income,e-commerce awareness,perceived competition,previous work experience,previous entrepreneurial experience,previous training experience,and social capital have significant effects on smallholders' e-commerce adoption,among which previous training experience,e-commerce awareness,and social capital are the most important factors.Besides,social capital plays a partial intermediate role between previous entrepreneurial experience and smallholders'e-commerce adoption,and the same between previous training experience and smallholders' e-commerce adoption.Thirdly,as for the peasants in the villages with high-level e-commerce adoption,the e-commerce adoption has a significantly positive and great effect on their income.The empirical results reveal that with the increasing usage of Internet,e-commerce has been becoming a vital way of digital dividends diffusing into rural areas and agri-food sector,and has promoted quite an income growth for many smallholders in some regions.In addition,the positive impact of e-commerce adoption on farmer income mainly results from the improvement of the profitability and the sales growth,but not the change of working hours and operating expense.Last but not least,e-commerce adoption evidently increases income inequality among peasants,mainly because of the differences in resource capital,education,social capital investment,and enterprization.In other words,the offline ability of management and investment can transform into online competition.The empirical results show that the development of e-commerce in rural China not only brings digital dividends for peasants but also digital divide among peasants.It is inevitable that smallholders are impossible to share digital dividends in the same way on account of the diversity of capital possession and differential management.The innovations of this paper are summarized as follows:Above all,the topic and themes are so original that it is the first systematic study on e-commerce clusters represented by ATVC in which smallholders in rural continuous communities directly sell the local agricultural products to consumers via e-commerce platform.Besides,it is proposed to explain the formation mechanism of specific types of industry clusters from three aspects of dynamics,elements and process,and an integrated evolution model was built to reveal the formation rule of ATVC and some differences between ATVC and general industry cluster which expands research and findings in industry cluster field.Lastly,this paper made theoretical analyses and empirical studies on the factors influencing peasants' e-commerce adoption and the impact of e-commerce adoption on peasant income,which helps to better understand the features and impacts of e-commerce development from the perspective of peasants' e-commerce adoption,expands quantitative research about smallholders in agricultural and rural e-commerce field,deepens the impact evaluation of cell phone and Internet use,and provides new evidence for smallholders' digital dividends in developing countries from the perspective of e-commerce in rural China.