In recent years, a notable trend has emerged: state-owned enterprises (SOEs), traditionally focused on infrastructure and energy, are now venturing into agriculture. COFCO is building grain silos at Nansha Port, State Power Investment Corporation is assisting farmers with sales, Sinopharm is developing traceability systems for agricultural products, China Railway 11th Bureau is engaging in farming in Wuhan, and CRCC Transportation is cultivating medicinal herbs in Shijiazhuang. These industrial titans are collectively pivoting toward agricultural supply chains.
As a smart service platform deeply involved in supply chain dynamics, we explore the rationale behind this shift. Why are SOEs suddenly concentrating on agricultural supply chains? What strategic advantages do they perceive?
First, let's examine the data: COFCO's grain terminal at Guangzhou Nansha Port is now the largest in South China; State Power Investment's rural revitalization program purchased over 58 million yuan worth of produce from impoverished regions in a single transaction; China Railway 11th Bureau established a dedicated subsidiary for modern agriculture. This is not a diversion but a strategic move toward substantial opportunities.
Agricultural supply chains offer four irreplaceable values: 1. Resilience: Unlike the volatile real estate and cooling infrastructure sectors, agriculture demonstrates counter-cyclical stability. With consistent demand and steady price growth, it provides SOEs with a reliable revenue stream. 2. Quality Revenue: Agricultural products are necessities with clear production and consumption cycles. This transparency makes them attractive to financial institutions, facilitating easier financing and scalable operations. 3. Alignment with National Goals: Rural revitalization is a national priority. By supporting farmers and improving supply chains, SOEs fulfill social responsibilities while strengthening government relations. 4. Abundant Opportunities: The agricultural sector, spanning production, processing, storage, and logistics, is ripe with inefficiencies. SOEs can carve niches—whether through full-chain integration like COFCO or specialized solutions like Sinopharm's traceability platforms.
However, with many players entering the space, differentiation becomes key. This brings us to a significant development in late 2025.
On October 24, 2025, the China eRWA Digital Industry High-End Forum was held in Shijiazhuang. The event introduced "Brown Sugar Chain Product," hailed as China's first eRWA product based on physical asset anchoring.
What is eRWA? Dong Feng, Chairman of Shenzhen Qianhai Pengfeng Digital Trade Technology and former General Manager of HKEX Qianhai United Trading Center, clarified that eRWA emphasizes asset digitization—converting physical assets into trackable, tradable digital assets—rather than financial speculation or tokenization.
eRWA requires underlying assets to meet three criteria: full digitizability (e.g., precise records from cultivation to processing), one-to-one mapping (each product traces back to specific raw materials), and divisibility (split portions retain practical value). Agricultural products, like brown sugar, perfectly fit these requirements.
The eRWA brown sugar product, developed from digitized sugarcane farming practices in Guangxi since 2024, offers three key benefits: 1. Precision Farming: Drones and algorithms monitor sugarcane fields centimeter-by-centimeter, enabling full digital tracking from growth to harvest. 2. Traceability: Each bag of brown sugar is linked to its origin, processing details, and grower, ensuring authenticity and value. 3. Domestic Closed-Loop Financing: The model enables presales of future output based on physical productivity, bypassing credit-dependent financing and avoiding cross-border complexities.
For SOEs, eRWA addresses longstanding challenges: traceability, high financing costs, and intermediary markups. It enhances trust, reduces costs, and shortens supply chains. For instance, COFCO's minute-level price alerts, combined with eRWA, could optimize supply-demand matching.
Conversely, SOEs' involvement provides eRWA with scalable, stable assets backed by credible entities, aligning with regulatory emphasis on实体经济 over speculation.
For consumers, eRWA ensures product authenticity; for industry players, it disrupts intermediary-dependent models, rewarding those adept in digitization. For SOEs, it marries rural revitalization goals with profitability, moving beyond scale-driven metrics.
Dong Feng concluded that eRWA represents a new path for industrial digitization. Similarly, SOEs' agricultural pivot is a strategic adaptation, not a diversion. The synergy between SOEs and eRWA tackles traceability, financing, and branding hurdles—though implementation details require expert insights.
An upcoming forum on March 26, 2026, will feature Dong Feng discussing practical applications, from drone monitoring to digital asset financing, offering firsthand insights for SOEs and eRWA enthusiasts.
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