Zhejiang Xinghe E-Commerce has launched the first personal customized farm project online in China. The project, which is called Gengdibao, was joined by e-commerce giant Alibaba and the farmer's cooperative in Anhui.

Customers who want to join the project can directly subscribe through an online platform. They will be able to subscribe for the land output including the right to use the land.

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Farmers who are subscribed to the Xinghe E-Commerce are informed regarding farmlands that are entrusted to the local cooperative.

A farmland in a village in Longchuan has about 30 percent of its 87 hectares unattended.

Hu Shaobai, a 70 year old farmer, said that as young people go to the city for other jobs, aging farmers like him do not have sufficient energy to tend the fields. Thus, so much land remains unattended and wasted.

Since the program was launched in March, there were already 3,560 customers who subscribed to the online program. There were also more than 28.6 hectares of land that were subscribed to and sales went up more than US$320,000. This was according to the local farmer's cooperative manager Dong Jiancheng.

According to the online platform, about 300 farming households in the county have inked land circulation contracts with Xinghe E-Commerce wherein they will receive yearly circulation payment of US$130 per one hectare of land.

The local farmer's cooperative then hires farmers to work in their subscribed farmland earning them a monthly salary of around US $400. Meanwhile, those farmers in the Jixi County receive monthly salary less than US $130 in 2013.

The use of land transfer through the e-commerce platform allows the protection of farmer's rights and boosts the development of modernized farming in China. Lands in the urban zone are owned by the government while rural lands are under collective ownership.

In 1978, a household contract responsibility system was introduced that allows farmlands to be collectively owned after being split and allocated to farmers.

The central authorities in China have vowed to help in strengthening the economic scale in agriculture and give more property rights to farmers by supporting mortgage of land use rights and transfer.

Xinghe E-Commerce has also planned an expansion of its online personal customized projects in other locations in the country. This would include Huangshan in Anhui Province and Zhejiang's Quzhou city.

TagsGengdibao, Xinghe E-Commerce, Anhui Province, Jixi County