Promoters bear fruit for farm labor

They are also industry organizers who have information and understand agriculture, have sales channels and are good at business. They also require integrity and a sense of responsibility, the commentary said.

After university Liu Yilin, 35, returned to his hometown in Siping, Dalian, Liaoning province, to run the family farm and work as a broker specializing in cherries.

By connecting through online and offline platforms, he and his team have sold cherries across China and exported them to India, Malaysia and other countries.

Liu said the job now goes way beyond finding buyers.

"Today, being an agricultural product broker means understanding quality control, brand building, and even integrating market research, consumer insight and planting planning," he said.

After the cherry season, he visits partner growers' greenhouses to advise on soil quality, and how to deal with pests and plant diseases. "We have to help growers and buyers solve real problems," he said.

In Huaihua, Hunan province, Shu Xinghua chairs the Xingmeng Bingtang (rock sugar) orange farmers' cooperative in Zhijiang Dong autonomous county. The prize-winning broker said a broker's value lies in "maximizing value across the whole chain through professional services and resource integration".

Over more than a decade in the Bingtang orange industry, he has built a model that combines e-commerce, a cooperative and farmers. It links 22 major production villages, and provides unified management, guaranteed prices and centralized marketing. The model has generated cumulative sales of more than 50 million kilograms, helping increase incomes of 1,837 households, he said.

Shu is now pushing for greater recognition of agricultural product broker as a profession through the development of tiered certification, a credit system, better links between senior brokers and major channels, and enticing more young people, including university graduates, into the workforce.

Brokers also face operational risks.

Many advance cash to growers, carry inventory when prices fall and wait for buyers' payments. The understanding of cold-chain capacity and digital skills also needs to be improved, he said.

As training expands to achieve the goal of 30,000 core brokers, the next test will be certification, grading, access to credit, and establishing stable links to major buyers and platforms.

Mo Ming, deputy dean of the business school at Hunan Agricultural University, said the school is tailoring courses to meet the skills required for agriculture broker jobs.

The marketing major offers courses such as digital marketing of agricultural products and short-video creation, and IP handling of agricultural products. Practical training in the classroom replicates scenarios that match brokers' actual jobs such as marketing skills and challenges.

Mo said the ripple effect of training 30,000 core agricultural product brokers will be substantial and they will require five key capabilities: resource integration, quality control management, market trading, organization and coordination, and risk control.