From the farm gate to your door, via the net

Individuals in remote communities are proving that you don't need to abandon your hometown to have a good life.

Two years ago Huang Sixiu was inspecting shops on the e-commerce platform Taobao and came across an unusual sight. It was someone selling produce, but this was far from your regular Taobao shopping site. What Huang saw was a farmer standing among jujube trees in Cangzhou, Hebei province, hawking his wares to the world via live-streaming.

Almost instantly Huang knew that this was something she was going to get into－not selling jujubes, but using the power off live-streaming either to make money for herself, to do something to help her hometown financially, or both.

"I knew nothing about live-streaming but decided to give it a try," says Huang, 30, who was born and raised in the remote village of Pingqiao in Pu'an, a poverty-stricken county of Qianxinan Bouyei and Miao autonomous prefecture in Guizhou province.

Despite Huang's hefty parenting duties－she has two children, one aged 3 and the other 1－she finds she has plenty of free time. That time, she decided, could be turned to good account, and now she does a live-stream webcast of three hours almost every day, the subject matter including visits to local markets and cooking meals.

"I remember the first time I did live-streaming. I went to the market just a few steps from home, camera in hand. As I switched on the camera I had no idea what I was going to say. So I just introduced myself and said where I was from. After I scanned the homegrown fruit and vegetables sold in the market many viewers left messages saying how impressive the diversity of the products was and asked how much they cost."

That debut live-streaming attracted more than 150 viewers, and when she live-streamed the next day, the number of viewers doubled.

"The demand for organic products is huge from urban consumers," Huang says.

In November 2018 she started regularly selling seasonal harvests of local agricultural products, such as chestnuts, potatoes and walnuts. During the shows viewers are given links that allow them to buy items they see. Each show now attracts more than 10,000 viewers, she says. From selling to packaging products, Huang does almost all the work herself, and she has a stable base of regular viewers that produces about 20 orders a day.

"My husband works during the week, so he helps me take the packages to the delivery station during weekends. I'm amazed that so many people all over the country watch someone in a remote village far from where they live. It feels good to know they trust me."

Her monthly profit is between 2,000 yuan ($280) and 3,000 yuan, she says.

"I sometimes take my children with me to the market. Viewers are attracted to the cute babies and the beautiful scenery of my hometown, including the surrounding mountains."

Before starting her live-streaming business, Huang worked in a shoe factory in Dongguan, Guangdong province, from 2009 to 2011. She has two brothers. As the only girl in her family, Huang dropped out of school after graduating from high school due to poverty. In 2011, Huang returned to her hometown and opened a convenience store.

Online sales offer more opportunities to sell outside the hometown market, she says, which helps increase income for local farmers. The local government also drew up plans to promote online shopping, such as improving logistic service and reducing delivery cost.

The e-commerce business has tangibly improved Huang's standard of living, and last year she bought a house in town and sent her daughter to a kindergarten instead of taking care of her herself.

Huang is one of a growing number of farmers from rural China who are using social media platforms to promote and sell local products to customers from all over China. Some of Huang's costumers who are full-time mothers also living in rural China have set up their own Taobao stores and sell local agricultural products through live-streaming.