Live streaming now plays a bigger role to lift farmers from China’s Hunan Province out of poverty.

Thanks to live streaming, wild pueraria lobata in Xiagong village, Yichun city of Jiangxi province has become popular online. (Photo/Xinhua)

Apart from daily affairs, Liu Shujun, vice head of the Chengbu Miao Autonomous County, tried broadcasting and promoting local produce on a streaming platform the last two months. Sales results proved this to be quite effective.

“Traffic is one of the barriers for the county to sell agricultural products outside, but live streaming platforms provide good opportunities for farmers to increase their incomes via online sales,” Liu told People’s Daily Overseas Edition.

“For example, 25,000 packs of bamboo shoots, one of the county’s specialties, can be bought out by the streaming views in just a few minutes.”

The live streaming account, exclusively for promoting Chengbu county’s produce, has attracted nearly 15,000 followers in two months. In its peak time, a live broadcast gains nearly 300,000 views in total. “It’s the Internet that enhances the popularity of Chengbu and its goods,” he added.

As the country makes earnest efforts to eliminate poverty, many counties and officials are using the Internet Plus, similar to Liu, or exploring other alleviation methods against poverty.

Professor Li Xiaoyun from the China Agricultural University noted that selling during live streaming acts as an effective tool to increase the income of poor farmers by cutting intermediary business through a direct link between the suppliers and buyers.

Now, many Internet companies such as Tencent and JD.com are taking an active part in building more online platforms to aid the development of agricultural industries in poor rural areas.