Alibaba, Pinduoduo fight against China’s looming food crisis

Customers wearing protective masks shop for fruits at a wet market in Shanghai, China. At a time when Chinese leaders are clamping down on monopolies in areas from fintech to e-commerce, smart agriculture is one sphere where China’s tech giants’ commercial interests are aligned with the national agenda. — Bloomberg

The battle to supply 1.4 billion people with fresh fruit and vegetables is taking China’s e-commerce companies into the country’s hinterlands, where they are attempting to revolutionise centuries-old agricultural practices to secure future supply for their burgeoning online grocery businesses.

Xi Jinping’s government has long made self-sufficiency in food a “top state issue” as it seeks to avert a looming food crisis. The need to modernise China’s 200 million largely small-scale farms took on added urgency during the pandemic, when output and logistics disruptions coincided with homebound shoppers turning to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and other Internet retailers for their produce.