On rural brokers

Lead: Rural brokers are the link between agricultural production and market demand. While guiding and adjusting farmers' production, we should use our own market resources to sell farmers' products, so that farmers' production activities can be effectively transformed into growing cash income, thus ensuring farmers' income increase.

The circulation of agricultural products is the key to increase farmers' income at present, and the key to solving the circulation problem is to solve the effective connection between agricultural products and the market. The emergence of rural brokers acts as a link between the market and farmers, and solves the circulation problem of agricultural products in time. It not only increased farmers' income, prospered rural economy and developed rural commodity circulation; Moreover, it solves the market risk in the process of rural industrial structure adjustment and is the key link to increase farmers' income. However, how to effectively deal with all kinds of potential risks in the business activities of rural brokers, reduce the losses caused by risks, resolve the great harm of risks, protect the business efforts made by rural brokers and safeguard the naturally weak rural economy is a problem worthy of our attention and urgent solution. This paper intends to make an exploratory study on this issue.

1 Definition of related concepts

In the definition of the concept of rural brokers, the academic understanding is similar. The Measures for the Administration of Brokers formulated by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce stipulates that rural brokers refer to natural persons, legal persons and other economic organizations engaged in brokerage business such as brokerage, brokerage and agency for the purpose of collecting commissions in economic activities. The rural brokers in this paper are only for natural persons.

About risk, American scholar Haynes first put forward his concept in 1895. The word risk has no technical content in academic fields such as economics, and it means the possibility of damage. ? In short, it is the possibility of loss. Accordingly, the risk in this paper refers to the possibility of rural brokers suffering economic losses in the process of brokerage activities.

About visual threshold, it refers to visual field or visual field; The study of rural economic man in this paper is to comprehensively analyze and discuss the types, causes and preventive strategies of risks faced by rural brokers under the framework of risk-related theories.

2 rural brokers brokerage risk types

Brokerage risk refers to all kinds of implicit and explicit risks that rural brokers must bear in the course of business operation. Finding and identifying risks is the basis and important step of risk prevention; Only by judging, analyzing and combing the potential and obvious risks in the process of rural brokers' brokerage activities can we make better control plans. Specifically, brokerage risks include the following categories:

2. 1 quality risk

Quality risk refers to the potential risk that may be brought about by one's own lack of quality. Rural brokers come from rural areas, generally transformed from farmers, and their educational level is generally not high. At present, among the 480 million rural laborers in China, primary school education accounts for 37.3%, junior high school education accounts for 50.2%, senior high school education accounts for 9.7%, technical secondary school education accounts for 2. 1%, and college education accounts for 0.6%. In other words, nearly 90% of them have junior high school education or below. The low level of education also makes rural brokers lack all kinds of competitive qualities necessary for market economy, and their business activities are mostly confined to their own towns and regions, lacking professional knowledge such as storage, transportation and logistics, and blindly operating. Do not have the brand awareness of becoming bigger and stronger, and do not know the meaning of brand premium; All these will bring unexpected economic losses to rural brokers. The lack of rural brokers' own quality not only restricts the smooth development of normal brokerage business to a certain extent; It also affects its identification of various potential risks. From the source of risk, quality risk is the biggest risk, which is not conducive to the sustainable development of rural brokers.

2.2 Operational Process Risk

Most standardized operating procedures are the summary of best practices and the basis for the continuous improvement of securities firms' performance. Acting according to procedures can effectively avoid risks. The business activities of rural brokers must also follow the general process of marketing; That is, market research, target customer selection, marketing implementation and payment collection. The contents mainly include: the construction of agricultural product sales network and the combination of distribution modes; Forecast the quantity, types, demand structure and suppliers of agricultural products; Investigation on the basic situation of target customers: business address, life style, economic strength, contact information, etc. Keep smooth communication channels with customers and maintain good emotional relations; Finally, conduct sales negotiations, sign supply and marketing contracts and cooperate in their implementation; Recover the payment in time and avoid credit. The above processes are very complicated, easy to operate improperly, and will also bring many risks; For example, investment deviation, backlog of goods, difficulties in fund recovery, etc. Because rural brokers grew up from the relatively closed small-scale peasant economy in rural areas, they lacked the baptism of market economy; Therefore, most of them lack market awareness, do not understand the screening of market information, lack of organization and cooperation, and the limitations of their own quality, which may easily lead to execution deviation and execution discount in the business process of enterprises, and bring the risk of huge economic losses.

2.3 Reputation risk

At present, a large number of rural brokers emerge, and the lag of government policies leads to the absence of supervision measures for rural brokers, and the temporary vacuum of policies intensifies the out-of-control state of rural brokers' business activities. With the loss of control of business activities, there is a risk of reputation loss, and the following three aspects will bring reputation risk:

2.3. 1 Contract anomie

In the relationship between rural brokers and customers, rural brokers themselves do not pay attention to the construction of integrity and lack legal knowledge. In brokerage activities, they don't sign supply and marketing contracts, but only rely on? A gentleman's agreement? ; Or even if there is a contract, the words and terms are extremely irregular, laying the groundwork for future rights disputes? Time bomb? . Irregular contract behavior is not only not conducive to the protection of their own interests, but also leaves customers with the impression of illegal operation and lack of credibility. In the long run, it will inevitably cut off customers and walk into a dead end of business.

2.3.2 Strong monopoly

The unequal economic status of farmers and rural brokers objectively leads to the weak position of farmers and the strong position of rural brokers. Some rural brokers take the opportunity to spread false information, monopolize the market, and depress prices for immediate benefits. It has gradually become the norm to pit farmers, damage farmers and harm farmers, which will inevitably reduce farmers' trust and cooperation with rural brokers and hinder the benign development and circulation of rural brokerage business.

2.3.3 interruption of funds

The lack of operating funds of rural brokers will objectively aggravate the loss of their credibility. Rural brokers come from farmers, and their own funds are inherently insufficient. What about the bank? Too poor to love rich people? Causing it to have nowhere to borrow; Or, although there is a loan, it doesn't help. If there are poor management, too large plates and poor capital turnover, it will force rural brokers to default on payment, write white notes, talk empty words, or even maliciously default, which will not only make farmers unwilling to engage in agricultural products production, but will eventually damage the image and reputation of rural brokers.

2.4 Information Risk

Modern market economy is information economy. It is an inevitable choice for rural brokers to quickly, accurately and reliably grasp the market supply and demand and the changing trend and explore the time value of information. A large part of the agricultural products operated by rural brokers are perishable primary products such as vegetables and fruits. At present, the construction of rural information network lags behind, and rural brokers cannot obtain market information in time; Unknown market of production, supply and marketing will easily lead to problems such as backward product varieties, disjointed supply and marketing, and low operating efficiency. Therefore, the lack of information means the risk of economic loss. Market information is an indispensable survival condition for rural brokers and plays a guiding role in brokerage activities. Only marketable agricultural products can stand the test of market risks. Improving information efficiency is the only way to fight against information risks.

2.5 Natural disaster risk

Natural disasters are irresistible. The vulnerability of agriculture to natural disasters determines that agricultural products share corresponding risks in production, supply and marketing. Farmers bear the risk of natural disasters in the production process, and rural brokers bear the risk of natural disasters in the sales process. Natural risks mainly come from various levels of heavy rain, heavy snow, floods, earthquakes, typhoons and so on. In the process of collection, sale, storage and transportation. Take Fengjie navel orange in Chongqing as an example. Although there was a bumper harvest in 2007, due to the freezing weather caused by the snowstorm, not only a large number of navel oranges were frozen in the ground, but also navel oranges bought by rural brokers were frozen by snow and ice, or a large number of them were overstocked, deteriorated and rotted. Either it is blocked on the road and frozen and discarded; In other words, although I arrived at the market, I was blocked by the heavy snow of customers, so it was not convenient to buy and no one cared. In the end, it can only be sold at a loss. The snowstorm not only severely hit the brand economy of Fengjie navel orange, but also hurt the navel orange agent, which may never be recovered. Therefore, after suffering from natural disasters, how to resolve risks, protect the interests of farmers and rural brokers, protect the fragile rural economy from the devastating impact of natural risks, and establish a mechanism to resist natural disaster risks is an urgent problem to be solved.

3 Analysis of risk formation factors of rural brokers

Analyzing the causes of risks will help to further clarify the sources of risks, and then solve the deep-seated contradictions of rural brokers. The traditional multi-factor theory regards the occurrence of risk as the result of the interaction of many factors, that is, the risks faced by rural brokers have many causes and different types, and the risks come from the joint efforts of many factors. We can use it to analyze the risk formation factors of rural brokers, which can be summarized into three categories: personal factors, organizational factors and natural factors. Among these three factors, personal factors and organizational factors can be effectively controlled and solved, which is the main cause of rural broker risk and the focus of the following classification and explanation. Natural factors refer to the climate, geology, topography and other conditions that affect the business activities of rural brokers, and the space for control and change is limited, so there is no need to explain more.

3. 1 personal factor analysis

Personal factors refer to the risk reasons caused by the limitations of their own objective conditions in rural brokers' brokerage activities.

From the perspective of rural brokers themselves, the deep-seated reason of rural brokers' risks is mainly rural poverty. This situation has caused the majority of farmers to have no conditions and opportunities to receive basic education. Most rural brokers come from rural areas and are transformed from farmers. Their status and situation are similar. The absolute poverty population in rural areas of China 1978 was 250 million, and there was still 21480,000 in 2007. Since the reform and opening up, the China government has successfully solved the problem of food and clothing for more than 200 million rural people, and the incidence of poverty has dropped from 30.7% to 2.3%. However, the poverty-stricken population has a large base and it takes a long time to get rid of poverty, so farmers have no time to care about education. Even if they put the whole family into education, the purpose is only to get rid of the identity of rural areas and farmers, that is, non-agriculture; This small number of educated people can't become rural brokers. Therefore, poverty makes the quality development of rural brokers lack necessary nutrients from the beginning of seedling, which is also the economic root of the risk source of rural brokers.

3.2 Analysis of organizational factors

Organizational factors mainly refer to the risk factors caused by improper national policies and systems. Organizational factors mainly include the continuous lack of investment in rural education and the slow development of rural market economy in China.

3.2. 1 Weak history of persistent insufficient investment in rural education

The long-term serious shortage of state investment in rural basic education directly leads to the weak situation of rural brokers' ability and quality in all aspects. 1986 China's compulsory education law has been determined? Running a school by grades? The principle of gradual formation? County school county office, township school township office, village school village office? Educational investment system. The evil consequence of this system is that poor rural education is poor, and the poorer it is, the less poor it is. The survey report of the State Council Development Research Center "County and Township Finance and Farmers' Burden" shows that in the total investment of rural compulsory education, the township level is as high as 78%, the county financial burden is only about 9%, the provincial and local financial burden is 1 1%, and the central financial burden is 2%. In 2006, the National Education Supervision Group issued the National Education Supervision Report. There are still primary schools in 1 13 counties (districts), and the public funds for junior high school students in 142 counties (districts) are zero. The reality that the country's investment in rural education is low and the rural areas are unable to invest leads to the low social benefit output of rural education. The cumulative effect makes the quality of farmers not improved for a long time, and rural brokers have to face it? Knowledge poverty? And then what? Material poverty? Double dilemma. The weak butterfly effect of rural basic education affects rural brokers and makes them face various brokerage risks.

3.2.2 The reality that the rural market economy is lagging behind.

The dual characteristics of market economy in the period of social system transformation are the deep institutional reasons why rural brokers can't adapt to the requirements of market economy. Brokerage, a new industry, is the product of market economy and the objective requirement of market development to a certain extent. Rural brokers are no exception. The backwardness of agriculture in China relative to industry is caused by long-term low productivity and self-sufficient natural economy, so it is impossible to grow seedlings of market economy on the soil where agricultural natural economy dominates? Rural broker. The market economy objectively needs the ideology of openness, circulation, freedom, honesty and so on, while the natural economic form in rural areas objectively creates closed, conservative and self-sufficient agricultural growers, and rural brokers with a complete market mind naturally cannot be honed in such a crowd. Therefore, rural brokers do not understand the market operation process, do not pay attention to credit construction, and do not pay attention to the changes of market information. The development of rural market economy is sluggish, so it can be said that rural brokers are facing market risks? Dominoes? The first picture has the effect of pulling one hair and moving the whole body; Therefore, as a very important part of the management strategy of rural brokers, we must pay attention to the comprehensive convergence, compatibility and synchronous development of the rural market economy system and the overall structure of China market economy.

4 the path of risk prevention

Analyzing and looking for the path of risk prevention can ensure the safety of rural brokers' brokerage activities at a small cost or expense, which is conducive to achieving a win-win situation of economic and social benefits. The path of effective risk prevention is the embodiment of the comprehensive use of various means, which cannot correspond to the types of risks one by one. The following are explained separately:

4. 1 increase state financial assistance.

The long-term planning of the development of rural brokers can not be separated from the support of state funds. It mainly includes two aspects. First, focus on the future, continue to increase capital investment in rural nine-year compulsory education, and make a qualitative leap in education level. Strengthen the reform of the national rural compulsory education funds guarantee mechanism to ensure that the compulsory education funds are really used. This is a long-term guarantee for rural brokers to train successors; Second, pay attention to the immediate future and increase the financial support of governments at all levels for the development of rural brokers, such as setting up training courses, building rural market infrastructure and building rural information networks.

4.2 Strengthen the risk awareness of rural brokers

Strengthening the risk awareness of rural brokers is the basic link of risk control. Only by tightening the string of risks can risks be discovered, and the establishment of risk awareness is an inevitable requirement for preventing risks. There is an idea of emphasizing management over risk among rural brokers, or they don't know what risk is, and they are careless and underestimated. These ideas must be removed, otherwise there will be endless harm. Only when we are clearly aware of the existence of risks can we always pay attention, be careful everywhere and pay attention to everything in our daily business activities. The cost of nip in the bud is far less than the risk itself.

4.3 Strengthen the training of rural brokers

The main body of risk prevention and resolution is rural brokers, so the resolution of risk ultimately depends on the improvement of the quality of rural brokers. The convenient way to improve quality is training. The training content mainly includes two aspects:

Basic cultural quality training

Basic cultural quality is the premise for all business activities of rural brokers to be carried out correctly. The actual cultural level of rural brokers has seriously affected their cognitive understanding of the ever-changing knowledge. Basic cultural quality training is to develop the intellectual resources of rural brokers, improve their basic learning abilities such as listening, speaking, reading and writing, enable them to stand on their own feet and learn independently, form intellectual capital and effectively resist risks.

4.3.2 Professional skills training

Professional skills are the guarantee knowledge for rural brokers to engage in a certain business field, and the perfection of professional skills is a part of resolving operational process risks and quality risks. According to their respective business fields, rural brokers can be trained in categories, batches and levels, mainly including the following contents: marketing and online marketing knowledge, information acquisition, transmission and utilization knowledge, logistics knowledge such as fresh-keeping storage of fruits and vegetables, and economic and legal knowledge such as contract law. Appropriate vocational skills training can effectively stimulate the ability of rural brokers to find potential crises in the course of business operation, even nip risks in the bud, save the opportunity cost of risks and achieve considerable economic benefits.

4.4 Strengthen the degree of organization, develop specialization and cooperation and establish professional associations.

This is actually a method to reduce risk accidents by collecting dangerous units. Through joint venture, cooperation and organization between rural brokers, the risk units will be concentrated in the organization, which will improve the accuracy of loss prediction and disperse risks internally. Mutual assistance among association members can save the cost of risk prediction and control. The existence of an organization can provide various guarantees and support for its members, such as guarantee, information sharing, standardizing competition and cooperation, financing and so on.

4.5 Strengthen the benefits of agricultural policy insurance

The so-called agricultural policy insurance refers to an institutional arrangement that provides economic compensation for economic losses caused by natural disasters or accidents in the process of production, feeding and growth of planting and aquaculture with the direct support of national policies. The benefit of welfare is that rural policy insurance not only plays a role in protecting agriculture, but also extends to the relevant important industrial interest chain, namely rural brokers. This is because agriculture, as the primary industry of the national economy, has a natural weakness in development, and the risks it bears are far greater than those of the secondary industry and the tertiary industry. Therefore, agricultural insurance should be provided by the state, which is in line with the development of rural market economy. As a link between the market and farmers, rural brokers are the key to rural economic development and farmers' income increase. Their development and growth are closely related to the quality of agricultural development. Therefore, agricultural policy insurance should cover rural brokers to cope with the double risks brought by nature and market and protect agricultural production and income from the interest chain. 4.6 Strengthen the construction of rural market environment

Rural market environment refers to the construction of infrastructure and security system in the process of agricultural marketization. The construction of rural market environment is an important part of the construction of rural market economic system, which can effectively promote the real marketization of rural brokers' business behavior and integrate comprehensive and standardized market economic behavior.

infrastructure construction

It mainly includes a multi-level and multi-functional commodity market system including various wholesale markets, production materials markets, professional markets and agricultural materials markets. Standardized trading market platform can standardize the trading behavior of both parties of agricultural products trading, and greatly reduce the cost and risk of trading process. In the event of natural risks, it can also be sold on the spot in time to reduce risks.

Construction of security system

It mainly includes: First, the construction of laws and regulations. For example, rural brokers' professional qualification identification system, law enforcement inspection and supervision system, etc. Strengthen the connection between systems and improve the compatibility and scientificity of systems; Second, the credibility evaluation system. An honest and harmonious market environment is inseparable from the construction of credit mechanism, which is also an inevitable way to avoid credit risk. It is necessary to establish and improve the system of personal credit information disclosure, credit investigation and credit evaluation of rural brokers, build a good credit environment in rural markets, urge rural brokers to attach importance to credit brand building, and increase the opportunity cost and public opinion cost of not speaking credit; Third, increase the support of rural small loans to rural brokers, and solve the development bottleneck and joint risks caused by insufficient funds of rural brokers. The amount of existing rural micro-credit is small, which has limited help to rural brokers. Therefore, while strengthening the construction of rural brokers' credit system, appropriately increasing the credit line, establishing and perfecting the national guarantee mechanism of microfinance, and establishing the credit guarantee mechanism of microfinance risk consortium or rural brokers' professional association will help reduce the credit risk of banks, solve the urgent needs of rural brokers, and realize the virtuous circle and reasonable appreciation of rural idle capital.

4.7 Accelerate the construction of rural information service platform.

Building rural information public service platform is an effective way to deal with information risks. The rapid development of information technology in modern society provides complete information conditions for platform construction. We should make full use of the information of various professional websites, break through the limitation of invalid information and realize the sharing of information resources. Rural brokers themselves should also improve their ability to capture information, pay close attention to the changes of market information, attach importance to information feedback, adjust their marketing strategies and change the sales direction according to the changing trend of market demand and agricultural product prices; At the same time, guided by market information, guide farmers to update planting varieties in time to ensure smooth connection between production and marketing.

4.8 Establish a timely notification system for early warning information of natural disasters.

The development of modern meteorological science has greatly improved the accuracy and timeliness of disaster prediction, and governments at all levels in China should also speed up the establishment of a sound national disaster early warning mechanism, which is far better than digging wells in advance. At the same time, we can still make full use of the existing disaster information network and encourage rural brokers' associations to establish a timely notification system of early warning information to prevent disaster information from being effectively and timely notified and utilized. Rural brokers can be reminded to pay attention to the information of the coming disaster in time through various channels such as internet, radio and mobile phones, so as to take timely countermeasures.

5 conclusion

In a word, the risk prevention process of rural brokers is uncertain, long-term and complex in the future, and it is a periodic process, which needs to find, identify and correct mistakes in time; Therefore, rural brokers should establish a firm risk awareness, always pay attention to risks, and cultivate the habit of risk prevention, making it the normal state of daily business activities.

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