Chinese Farmers Dodge Coronavirus and Go Online for Spring Seeds and Supplies

Chinese Farmers Dodge Coronavirus and Go Online for Spring Seeds and Supplies
A strawberry farmer walks past a greenhouse at his farm where sales have been severely affected by the coronavirus outbreak in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, China, on Feb. 4, 2020. Thomas Peter/Reuters
|Updated:

SHANGHAI—Many Chinese farmers are shopping online for vital supplies as the spring planting season gets under way and the coronavirus outbreak disrupts traditional supply chains, providing a huge boost to business for e-commerce platforms.

Fertilizers, chemicals, seeds and machinery are traditionally distributed to China’s hundreds of millions of farmers via a network of traders and local distributors.