The Internet can be dangerous when used to spread religious extremism, but it can also be a positive tool in connecting Muslims in isolated far-west China to the world.

Toti Mamut, a 73-year-old Uygur farmer, has grown apricot trees and kept sheep his whole life in Kashgar of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

He has never left his hometown, but he is now known far and wide as a brand ambassador after bags of local specialties bearing his smiling face have been sold online and delivered to cities from Beijing to New York.

This was made possible by e-commerce firm Vizdan Trading Co Ltd, which sold 150 tons of Xinjiang agricultural goods such as walnuts, dried apricot slices and jujubes to online buyers last year.

Representatives of the company, founded by several young people from different ethnic groups in March 2012, gathered with other e-commerce firms at a conference last week in Xinjiang to discuss how to make Uygur farmers' lives easier through the Internet.

With China's online population reaching 649 million by the end of 2014 and the state placing support behind e-commerce with its "Internet Plus" action plan, companies like Vizdan are riding the crest of a digital wave. Co-founder Liu Jingwen hopes more e-commerce firms can focus on Xinjiang and farmers there.

 

Online bazaar

Toti Mamut's 50 apricot trees can produce 500 kg of fruit every year.

Before the Internet came into his life, he had to haul his dried apricots more than 16 km by donkey-pulled cart to sell them to wholesalers at a low price, or just watch them rot on the ground.

Things changed at the end of 2012 when Vizdan co-founder Mahmut Tursun, nicknamed Amu, told him that dried apricots could be sold on something called the Internet.

"Our fellow villagers asked what the Internet was. The young man said it's an online bazaar," Toti Mamut recalls.

Amu and his colleagues purchase quality farm products from contracted farmers at a price 10 percent higher than the market average, give dividends to them, and provide training on agricultural skills.

They also publish farmers' biographies on online stores so consumers can understand where the product comes from and the story of its producers.

Muhtar Abdudical, the first farmer to partner with Vizdan, has 130 black walnut trees in Xinjiang's Huangdi town.

With the help of the Internet, he earned 26,000 yuan (around $4,250) selling walnuts last year, nearly four times what he made in 2011.

Business is so good that Muhtar Abdudical's son, a migrant worker, is considering moving back home.

 

Easing isolation

In order to improve mutual understanding between Xinjiang farmers and city dwellers elsewhere in China, Vizdan usually includes a blank postcard with the farmer's picture on it in the packages it mails to buyers. It encourages the customers to write back to the farmer with feedback.

Amu, who translates the messages for their Uygur recipients, tells Xinhua that Vizdan aims to have partnerships with 2,700 farming families by the end of the year.

Though it's far from enough – Xinjiang has tens of millions of farmers who need more opportunities to get online – its obvious that such businesses have real potential, economically and socially.

Liu Jingwen said that he wants people to think about more than terrorism when they think of Xinjiang. "The taste of the fruit lets me know a different Xinjiang" reads one of the customer postcards sent to Toti Mamut.