Women entrepreneurs transforming rural communities

CHONGQING/TAIYUAN — As the cool moonlight filtered through a plum orchard in the Jielong township of Southwest China's Chongqing, 44-year-old Tao Heng could be found setting up her phone in a nearby studio.

"Hello, darlings! I'm your 'plum sister', and today I'm going to share with you the crown jewel of our orchard," she told the camera with a smile. No one would have known that the confident livestreamer had been frozen by nerves during her debut broadcast.

In Chongqing's Zili village, 70-year-old entrepreneur Chen Kaorong walks through rows of lush pomelo trees. "I just couldn't bear to see locals cut down their fruit trees for firewood," she recalls.

In Youyu county of North China's Shanxi province, Gao Jianhua, who once worked at a state-owned enterprise in the provincial capital city of Taiyuan, is now the general manager of Fushuo Lianchuang E-commerce Co, which ships local agricultural products like mutton, sea buckthorn and flax oil across the country. "We send out over 300 orders a day, with monthly sales of over 2 million yuan (US$282,000)," Gao says.

Though they have different backgrounds and age groups, these women share a common thread, having all seized the opportunities presented by the digital age to transform their rural communities.

Women in rural China now constitute over half of the rural workforce, and in recent years, have been rising as key drivers of rural revitalization. They've moved from traditional domestic and farming roles to the forefront of entrepreneurship and digital innovation.

Women now occupy 44 percent of all village committee seats in Chongqing and account for over 50 percent of China's digital entrepreneurs, while 70 percent of employees at Gao's e-commerce startup are women.

"Whether it's on the front end of livestreaming or the back end of sales, women have significant advantages," Gao says.

In the e-commerce industry chain, stages such as order processing and shipping involve meticulous verification processes, and this work is well-suited to women, who tend to be more careful, Gao says. Women who work in livestreaming often have advantages in terms of patience and communication skills, she adds.

Women like Tao, Chen and Gao are leveraging livestreaming, e-commerce and digital platforms to boost local economies and empower their neighbors.

"After establishing the pomelo planting cooperative, I invited experts to improve the variety and turned local pomelos from produce that couldn't even be sold for 1 yuan apiece into a high-end fruit that is exported to Singapore for 300 yuan apiece," Chen says.

"I want to help my neighbors in my hometown prosper by focusing on quality and building a strong pomelo brand," Chen notes. To enhance the quality of the local pomelos, Chen invited experts from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences' Citrus Research Institute to provide technical guidance, and adhered to scientific planting standards.

Today, the Jielong pomelo has obtained national geographical indication product certification and is planted across a total area of 5,000 mu (about 333 hectares). Local pomelo growers can earn tens of thousands of yuan in a year.

Tao has also established a vocational training school that trains over 100 locals each year, helping her community — especially stay-at-home mothers — find employment. "Leading everyone in my hometown to increase their income and prosperity gives me great motivation," Tao says. She is particularly pleased when she sees rural women who had once been shy now confidently introducing agricultural products before the camera to customers.

Based on the efforts of female entrepreneurs like Tao and Chen, the Chongqing Women's Federation has created a public brand channel to sell 5,317 quality products in the online marketplace. The federation is collaborating with e-commerce platforms like Amazon and JD.com to help these unique products reach international markets, enabling women to contribute more to the country's rural revitalization.

Xinhua