Abstract: China's agricultural products logistics mode presents diversified characteristics, mainly including self operated logistics mode (including processing enterprise leading, circulation enterprise leading and wholesale market leading), third party logistics mode and logistics park mode. The main problems of agricultural products logistics in China are high cost, high loss and weak value-added ability. We should take targeted measures to reduce the logistics cost of agricultural products, reduce the loss in the process of logistics, and enhance the value-added ability of agricultural products. In the future, the development of agricultural products logistics mainly presents the trend of Park led multi industry integration, e-commerce, rural residential docking, and intelligent distribution of the last mile. 

一、Current situation of agricultural products logistics in China

Agricultural products logistics refers to the activities that take agricultural products as the object, through the logistics links of agricultural products postpartum processing, packaging, storage, transportation and distribution, so as to maintain and increase the value of agricultural products, and finally send them to consumers.[1]

This definition is defined according to the definition of logistics in logistics terminology standard. In fact, there are many different views on agricultural products logistics. Here we just quote a common definition. China has a non mandatory national standard of logistics terms, and most of the definitions of logistics are derived from this basis.  

At present, China's agricultural products logistics mode presents the characteristics of diversification. Why is it diversified? Because there are many kinds of agricultural products in China, and the attributes of various agricultural products are different. China has a vast territory and abundant resources. Many places have different natural conditions, economic structure and development level, so different agricultural products logistics modes will be derived in different places. This paper mainly introduces the following three types: 

1. Self supporting logistics mode   

Self supporting logistics mode, mainly refers to the producers, processors or circulation enterprises of agricultural products, organize logistics activities independently, serve the production and sales of agricultural products, and connect the production and consumption of agricultural products. In fact, this mode can be divided into three types: processing enterprise leading type, circulation enterprise leading type and wholesale market leading type.  

(1) Leading logistics mode of processing enterprises     

With agricultural products processing enterprises as the core, it directly signs cooperation agreements with farmers or through cooperatives or production bases and farmers to organize the operation of logistics, so as to deliver agricultural products to consumers through wholesalers, retailers or some direct sales outlets. See Figure 1 for details.  

(2) Leading logistics mode of circulation enterprises  

Circulation enterprises (mainly refers to large supermarkets, hypermarkets, warehouse shopping malls) to organize the operation of logistics, so as to deliver agricultural products to consumers through the distribution center. The distribution center has two ways of distribution: one is the distribution center wholesaler retailer consumer, and the other is through its own chain stores or directly to consumers. See Figure 2 for details.

Figure 1 leading logistics mode of processing enterprises  

(3) Wholesale market oriented logistics mode   

There are a lot of specialized wholesale markets in China. In this mode, it dominates, organizes the source of goods with producers or some intermediary organizations, and then sends them to consumers through wholesalers and retailers. See Figure 3 for details.  

2. Third party logistics mode of agricultural products  

The so-called third party refers to neither the supplier nor the demander to organize, that is to entrust the third-party logistics enterprises to transport agricultural products from the producers to the demanders. In fact, this is the nature of logistics agent service. This content is also very rich, need to control the entire logistics process. See Figure 4 for details.  

3. Mode of agricultural products logistics park  

Click on pictures to learn more  

At present, there are a lot of agricultural products logistics parks in China. The logistics parks have many functions, such as transportation and distribution, storage, distribution, circulation processing, customs declaration, inspection and quarantine, etc. By relying on the logistics infrastructure of the logistics park, agricultural products are delivered from the supplier to the demander. See Figure 5 for details.   

In fact, it is generally believed that among the above models, the current agricultural products logistics mode in China mainly focuses on the wholesale market of agricultural products. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, by the end of 2013, there were more than 4500 wholesale markets of agricultural products in China, undertaking more than 70% of the circulation tasks of agricultural and sideline products, and initially formed a new pattern of multi-level, multi-body and multi-type agricultural products market circulation. According to the statistics of the National Bureau of statistics, by the end of 2013, there were 1759 wholesale markets for agricultural products with an annual trading volume of more than 100 million yuan. The total trading volume, trading volume, the number of stalls and trading area in the wholesale market all achieved rapid growth, and the growth rate was higher than the growth rate of GDP. 

At present, according to the number and scale of wholesale markets, the top five provinces are Guangdong, Beijing, Jiangsu, Shandong and Liaoning, accounting for 49% (see Table 1). This is mainly due to the high population density in the eastern region, good agricultural and transportation infrastructure, and relatively developed commodity economy, so its wholesale market has a large number and large scale. 

二、Problems and causes of agricultural products logistics in China   

The main problems of agricultural products logistics in China are high cost, high loss and weak value-added ability. Table 2 is a comparison of agricultural products logistics between China and the United States.  

Figure 2 logistics mode dominated by circulation enterprises  

 

Figure 3 wholesale market leading logistics mode  

Figure 4 third party logistics mode of agricultural products  

Figure 5 mode of agricultural products logistics park  

1. High logistics cost  

When it comes to logistics cost, there is a group of macro data. Now, the general statistical data show that the total cost of logistics in China accounts for more than 18% of GDP, while that of developed countries is only about 9%. Compared with developed countries, we are much higher.  

Table 1 Top 5 list of regional distribution of agricultural products wholesale market in China   

There is controversy about this. Because domestic experts have done relevant research, that is, the development of China in the past 20 years. In fact, the characteristics of industrial structure are very similar to that of the United States during 1960-1980. In other words, under the same industrial structure, China's logistics cost is actually 4% higher than that of the United States, instead of 9%.  

In terms of agricultural products logistics, China's grain logistics cost accounts for about 40%, vegetables, fruits and other fresh agricultural products account for more than 60%, while the United States accounts for 10% ~ 20% and 30% respectively. From this we can see that the logistics cost of China is still much higher than that of the United States.  

The reasons for the high logistics cost are as follows: firstly, the transportation mode of agricultural products logistics is mainly by road, because the railway freight transportation problem has not been effectively solved, and the logistics cost remains high due to highway transportation; secondly, there are many logistics links, and agricultural products are loaded, unloaded, stored and transported for many times, resulting in the logistics cost greatly increased. As we all know, although the Ministry of transportation has been realized, the task of railway reform is still very heavy.  

2. High loss  

The average loss rate of agricultural products in China is 30%, and the loss rate of fresh agricultural products such as fruits and vegetables is 35%, while the loss rate of fruits and vegetables in the United States is only about 2%.

The reasons for the large losses in the logistics process are: First, there are relatively few professional equipment, less modern container applications, slow development of bulk transportation, insufficient number of specialized facilities and equipment, and low standardization. Second, the cold chain ratio is low. At present, my country's agricultural product logistics has not yet formed a cold chain connection in the whole logistics process, and there are few cold chain logistics services, which cannot meet market needs. From the perspective of refrigerated capacity, refrigerated transport capacity and refrigerated transport rate, my country is relatively low compared with the United States, Japan and European developed countries (see Table 3). For example, the cold storage capacity in my country is 0.056m3 per capita, 1.14m3 in the Netherlands, 0.365m3 in the US, and 0.233m3 in Japan. In terms of refrigerated transportation, there are 55,200 road refrigerated trucks in my country, 220,000 in the United States, and 120,000 in Japan; the refrigerated transportation rate is less than 20% in my country, and 80% to 90% in Europe, the United States, and Japan. Due to the very low proportion of my country's agricultural product logistics cold chain, the losses caused are very large. The third is that the number of loading and unloading is relatively high. Agricultural product logistics involves multiple links, and the number of removals is large, resulting in a large amount of agricultural product losses.  

3. Weak value-added ability  

The ratio of output value and processing output value of agricultural products in China is about 1:1, the value-added ratio of fruit processing is 1:2, while that of the United States is 1:3 and 1:4 respectively. It can be seen that the value-added ability of agricultural products in China is relatively weak.

The reasons for the weak value-added ability are: first, the deep-processing ability is relatively low, most of the agricultural products are mainly primary products; second, the deep-processing technology is relatively backward, the processing level is relatively low, the classification is simple and rough, the packaging is relatively simple and even without packaging.  

三、Countermeasures of developing agricultural products logistics in China  

1. Reduce the logistics cost of agricultural products  

We should make full use of the railway transportation capacity to establish an efficient agricultural products logistics network through road rail transport. The economic radius of the highway determines that it is inevitably high cost to undertake the long-distance logistics transportation, and the railway can solve this problem, but the key is how to enhance the timeliness of highway rail combined transportation. In order to reduce transportation costs and logistics transfer links, we should encourage the development of agricultural supermarket docking mode and improve the degree of intensification.  

2. Reduce the loss of agricultural products  

The first is to improve the mechanical level of handling and conveying from technical aspects, for example, screw conveyor and bucket elevator with low carrying capacity can be used for grain handling and conveying equipment; the second is to improve the professional level of transportation equipment, such as changing open top truck bulk transportation to container and van type refrigerated truck transportation; the third is to improve the professional level of warehouse facilities, The fourth is to improve the cold chain service and improve the cold chain service level.  

Table 2 Comparison of agricultural products logistics between China and the United States  

Table 3 Comparison of cold chain level of fruits and vegetables agricultural products between China and major developed countries 

3. Enhance the value-added ability of agricultural products 

We should improve the ability of deep processing of agricultural products, expand the proportion of deep processing of agricultural products, and adopt professional processing equipment to improve the technical level of deep processing of agricultural products.

四、Development trend of agricultural products logistics in China  

In the future, the development of agricultural products logistics mainly presents the following four trends:

1. Multi industry integration led by park

Break the traditional single logistics zone development mode, adopt the multi-functional and interactive mode of transaction, distribution, commerce, residence, office and leisure, and realize the multi-functional agglomeration. [2] In fact, this kind of agricultural products logistics park is a multi industry integration Park, even a park integrating industry and city functions, especially some large logistics parks, such as Shandong Shouguang Vegetable Logistics Park, which is the integration of industry and city, or called industrial new city.  

2.Agricultural e-commerce logistics  

E-commerce of agricultural products is a trend in the future.  

(1) Build a professional third-party agricultural products e-commerce service platform. The platform itself does not directly participate in the transaction, but as a third party, it provides professional services for customers by charging transaction commission and advertising fees; at the same time, as the third party of credit, it charges lower transaction commission. In terms of agricultural products logistics, the third party logistics is used for distribution. [3] Funds are deposited in a third party to reduce transaction risk. Many enterprises are already working on this platform. For example, China Green Valley is currently the largest B2B2C e-commerce platform for agricultural products in China. It was launched in 2013 with a total transaction volume of more than 10.2 billion yuan. 

(2) Create a closed-loop e-commerce for agricultural products. The closed-loop agricultural products e-commerce is to develop the socialized and mature cold chain logistics through the form of "base integration + marketing + flow + transaction + supply chain service + word-of-mouth marketing" from the dimensions of the story behind the commodity, planting base, picking experience, logistics experience, traceability, supply chain visualization and so on. For example, Shunfeng optimization provides consumers with a full range of one-stop service, direct purchase at home and abroad, professional cold chain storage and transportation, exclusive logistics fast delivery, and the products delivered to customers are fresh.

3. Rural housing connection  

Rural housing docking has been advocated by us, and it is an inevitable trend to develop from rural super docking to rural housing docking. With the accelerated pace of urban life and the improvement of food safety requirements, many urban white-collar families have no elderly. For this group, it is more difficult to buy agricultural products from supermarkets and bring them home. Therefore, the rural housing docking will become a trend, through online orders, vegetables directly sent home, which will greatly facilitate the daily life of urban residents, and from the overall logistics cost point of view is saving. See Figure 6 for the docking mode of rural supermarket and rural residence.  

4.Intelligent distribution of "last mile" 

In the field of logistics, the last mile delivery is a relatively big problem, and it is also a very important issue to be solved in urban logistics. As far as agricultural product logistics is concerned, in cities, logistics operations can only be carried out at night, and agricultural products, especially fresh agricultural products such as vegetables, are not suitable for multiple distributions, because it will cause excessive losses. So, how to deliver the products to the sleeping customers? This requires the agricultural products to be sent to the smart fresh-keeping cabinets in the consumers' houses. After the vegetables and other agricultural products are delivered to the fresh-keeping cabinets, consumers are given a pickup number and password. After the consumer returns home, with the pick-up number and password, he can take out his own agricultural products such as vegetables from the corresponding cabinet. Through this form of intelligent cabinets, the problem of last-mile delivery can be solved. This is just a form. There are many innovations at present. If you pay attention to observe, you will find that there are many ways to solve the problem of delivery and delivery in the last mile. For example, collecting the express items of various express companies and then sending the items for the express companies, this is also an example of solving the last mile of logistics distribution. Therefore, we must continue to innovate.  

Fig. 6 Comparison of rural supermarket docking and rural housing docking mode

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Author: Shi Xianliang  

Source: China's circulation economy, issue 07, 2015 

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