Old, young farmers
Even before dawn brings another beautiful summer day to Kashgar, the city's biggest farmers' market, Kuklan, is filled to the rafters, and hundreds of anxious farmers vie to sell their fruit and vegetables.
Abdulaen, 57, gets up at 2 a.m. everyday to load his van with tomatoes and join the long queue to Kuklan market.
He needs to sell all of these ripe, plump tomatoes before they turn bad in the summer heat.
"If I can't find a wholesaler, I have to dump them, so getting here early is very important," he said.
In the hustle and bustle of the market, some of the younger farmers seem more relaxed.
Alimamat, 30, sells most of his cabbages and tomatoes to e-commerce companies.
He owns six vegetable sheds and packs up the vegetables according to online orders. On a busy day, he can sell over 400 kilograms of tomatoes and 280 cabbages.
"The orders are reassuring, there are no big price fluctuations, and hardly any of my vegetables rot in the field," he said. Alimamat makes at least 100,000 yuan (about 15,300 U.S. dollars) a year.
E-commerce also employs a lot of women in southern Xinjiang, where, up until recently, it was the norm for girls to marry early and be housewives.
Rutsangul started working with Saphola last year.
"I get 2,500 yuan a month, this is a good income for my family. The office is near my home so I can still care for my 5-year-old son," she said.
"I have taught many women in my village to use a computer," she said.
Fighting poverty
Located south of the Taklimakan Desert, most counties in southern Xinjiang are underdeveloped, weighed down by poor infrastructure and low education level. In early 2016, Xinjiang had 2.61 million people in poverty, 83 percent of whom lived in southern Xinjiang.
Xinjiang government made this area one of its top priorities in the anti-poverty battle before 2020. This year, the regional government will channel money into huge projects, including irrigation facilities and roads all across southern Xinjiang.
"Online commerce is not only reshaping the way people shop, but is also having a positive effect on modern agriculture and lives for people in southern Xinjiang," said Meng Yongsheng, deputy director of Economics College in Xinjiang University of Finance and Economics.
The government and the companies need to work together to support the industry and help the area to merge into the national endeavor to building a new Silk Road, he said.
In the next five years, Minsheng's Liu Chao wants to double the number of offices in southern Xinjiang.
