Fang said that his company launched a promotional campaign with JD Farm, the agriculture management and retailing service of e-commerce operator JD.com, earlier this year.

"We worked with farmers to create a rice-planting base of 1,000 mu (roughly 66.7 hectares) and a 500 mu base for navel orange in March," he said. "During this initial period, we've invested about 2.96 million yuan ($464,000)."

He said that JD Farm provides access to high-tech facilities and monitoring software to help monitor the soil condition, weather changes and pesticide use, and helps train farmers and business operators to ensure production meets high standards.