Online livestreaming boosts Shibadong’s economy

“Good evening. I am Shi Kang, secretary of the Youth League Branch in Shibaodong Village. Today, I would like to recommend the sour spicy corn, a kind of handmade Miao cuisine, without any coloring matter and additives, and it is spicy and appetizing.” A livestreaming session was held in Shibaodong Village of Huayuan County, Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture. Villagers dressed in traditional Miao costumes neatly arranged agricultural products which would be promoted to consumers nationwide.

It’s the fifth time that Shi Kang had conducted livestreaming with the villagers at night since June. Due to the rich variety of products and innovative forms, his every livestreaming show attracts a lot of viewers.

Shi Kang returned to his hometown and started his own business in 2019 after graduating from university due to his love for his hometown and passion for entrepreneurship. He established the first youth e-commerce livestreaming room in Shibaodong Village with like-minded friends. “Shibaodong Village has beautiful scenery, delicious food, and profound ethnic culture. I majored in new media in the university, so I want to promote Shibaodong Village’s unique and high-quality agricultural products across the country through short videos and livestreaming,” he said.

Since the beginning of this year, Shi Kang has launched over 60 livestreaming sessions with his team. He found through his interaction with netizens that they not only have a demand for agricultural products but also are interested in the production process of agricultural products and some ancient techniques. Therefore, he came up with an idea that why not allow villagers to participate in livestreaming during the agricultural off-season, so that consumers can have a deeper understanding of products and also develop a “new media matrix” in Shibaodong Village. He said, “In the new media era, I want to let villagers achieve employment at their doorstep through livestreaming.”

However, due to small production scale and uneven product quality, it’s difficult to make every family in the village benefit from the Internet. With the help of the local government, Shi Kang has achieved the market-oriented development of unified processing, standards, and brands for agricultural products, making the livestreaming sales system of agricultural products more complete.

“As the secretary of the Youth League Branch of Shibaodong Village, I have the obligation to gather more youth forces to serve the development of my hometown, injecting youthful energy into rural revitalization,” said Shi Kang. He shared his entrepreneurial stories with college students from Central South University, Hunan University, and other universities carrying out volunteer service activities in Shibaodong Village during the summer vacation and led them to visit Shibaodong’s characteristic industries. The college students also helped with product selection, livestreaming data statistics, and livestreaming sales. After the livestreaming, Shi Kang also reviewed the whole process with them to prepare for the next livestreaming.

“It is very meaningful to do a livestreaming with Shi Kang and also the first time that we have put theory into practice. We have conducted sufficient research and discussions on logistics standard system construction, logistics network planning, and other aspects,” said a student from Central South University.

“Rural revitalization requires young people to take the lead. In Xiangxi Prefecture, there are still many returning young people like Shi Kang. They have trained their skills in promoting agriculture, cultivated their love for agriculture, and made contribution to rural revitalization,” said an official of the local government.