Lanzhou Zhenxing Lily Planting Cooperative was established in April 2009, located in Yuanjiawan Village, Xiguoyuan Town, Qilihe District, Lanzhou City, which is called the “No.1 Village in the World of Lily”. It is mainly composed of lily planters and processors, with 216 members. The Cooperative directly drives 268 farmers and indirectly drives 3,781 farmers. The planting base of the Cooperative is located in the main production area of Lanzhou lily, with a long history of planting. The Cooperative has a certified area of 6,390 mu of pollution-free base. As one of the members of the Gansu Federation of Specialized Farmers Cooperatives, a joint implementation unit of MTCP2 in China, the Cooperative has achieved good results in both industrial development and brand building with the support of the Program.
To set up the Cooperative. Director-general Ma Yuanbiao set up the Cooperative with the original intention of building a community of interests in the lily industry in the village, avoiding vicious competition within the village, and rushing into the market as a group. After the establishment of the Cooperative, it carried out unified purchase, unified pricing, unified processing, unified packaging, unified sales, and then applied for green food certification, unified base management, unified supply of chemical fertilizers, seed balls, and registered the trademark of ‘Lily Source’, which soon became an effective way to lead the orderly development of the local lily industry. By participating in a training program for the director-generals of farmers’ cooperatives organized by the Farmers’ Cooperative Development Center, Ma Yuanbiao has strengthened the confidence of gathering strength, developing industry, and driving farmers through the Cooperative, and also made clear the direction of running the Cooperative in the future.
To build up the brand. In August 2014, “Lily Source (Chinese name: 百合源)” was awarded the “National Top 100 Agricultural Products Brand” honor, a total of two in Gansu Province. “Members of the cooperatives mainly do the farm work during the busy season. They can also get paid by helping the cooperatives when it’s time for processing and packaging the products,” said Ma Yuanbiao, adding that the Cooperative runs a piece-by-piece system, whereby the highest monthly wage can reach 4,600 yuan (USD 583), and the average monthly wage can be 3,000 to 3,500 yuan (USD 437 to 510). The Cooperative is also listed as a Precision Poverty Alleviation and Assistance Unit, helping 282 farmers from 100 filed and registered poor households.
To explore e-commerce. In July 2014, the Cooperative officially launched its store on Taobao, changing from the original “three stars” to the current “five diamonds”, with more than 7,000 favorable comments, and is about to reach “one crown.” The Cooperative’s Taobao orders have risen steadily, and now there can be always more than 100 orders per day. From September 26, fresh lily sales ranked first in Taobao. On the Double Twelve (the 12th day in December), the Cooperative’s Taobao orders broke through 2,000 and reached 2,026, with a sales volume of 100,600 yuan (USD 14,682). It deserves to be the champion of all lily sellers in Taobao. In order to seize the opportunity of e-commerce, the Cooperative invested 2.8 million yuan (USD 408,657) to build a lily e-commerce distribution base in 2014. The base covers an area of 2,800 square meters, including export product production workshops, packaging workshops, heat preservation, and fresh-keeping warehouses, and rural e-commerce operation centers, which effectively promote the development of the lily industry, increase the income of farmers who have worked in bases of the Cooperative, and solve more rural surplus labor force employment.
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