Why rural development needs new types of agriculture-related talent

Whether rural development needs talent is not even a question, since development in any region requires talent; but the shortage of talent in rural development is a real problem, and the "siphon" phenomenon of rural talent flowing to cities has persisted for many years. Solving the shortage of rural talent and attracting more talent to devote themselves to agriculture will inevitably require a new understanding and a new social consensus.

According to the Guangdong Provincial Department of Agriculture, 11 counties (cities and districts) across the province were selected in 2015 as key demonstration counties for the Ministry of Agriculture's new-type professional farmer training, and the provincial agriculture department will study and formulate certification standards and support policies for new-type professional farmers this year. In fact, Guangdong is not the only place promoting professional farmer training; Shaanxi, Shandong, Jiangsu and other places have repeatedly appeared in the newspapers for advancing professional farmer certification work. For example, Shaanxi Province recently issued "new-type senior professional farmer" certification qualification certificates to the second batch of 182 farmers, which netizens jokingly called "awarding senior professional titles to farmers."

Is awarding professional titles to farmers good or not? Is there a real need for it? From the perspective of short-term interests, whether farmers have professional titles has no necessary connection with their agricultural production; with or without titles, they still plant whatever they should plant and raise whatever they should raise. But from the perspective of long-term interests, agricultural development cannot always remain at a low-level stage, and agriculture cannot achieve modernization while detached from the support of modern agricultural science and technology. As early as 2012, the No. 1 Central Document clearly proposed "vigorously cultivating new-type professional farmers." Since they are new-type professional farmers, they are of course different from traditional farmers. This "new type" should have at least three points: being educated, understanding technology, and knowing how to manage. However, we must face up to a fundamental problem of rural talent loss: the loss of rural professional and technical personnel and the flow of rural young and middle-aged labor to cities. The loss of talent in these two areas has led to a relatively weak foundation for cultivating professional farmers: both frontline teaching staff and student strength are relatively scarce.

What should be done? First, analyze the reasons why the base of teachers and students for professional farmers is relatively small. First, a large number of students in agriculture-related majors are unwilling to return to agricultural posts. The reason they are unwilling to return is that in 2005 township agricultural technology service centers changed from public institutions into mass organizations, and students' thinking has not yet turned around, believing that the promotion channel to public officials has been cut off. The shortage of township agricultural technicians directly leads to a shortage of teaching staff for farmer technical training. Second, although the college student village official program was launched long ago, many of those involved are of a "gilded" nature, having only a smattering of agricultural science and technology or no understanding at all, and cannot undertake the function of frontline rural technical research and training. Third, because agricultural production income is relatively low, it has become the mainstream for rural young and middle-aged labor with a certain educational foundation to go out to work. Between professional migrant workers and professional farmers, more people choose the former.

The difficulty is here, and so is the opportunity. We must also see that under the wave of the mobile internet, the prospects for agriculture are undergoing tremendous changes. The encounter between agriculture and "Internet Plus" has brought many fresh stories and many fresh opportunities to agriculture. Analyzing the current O2O entrepreneurial phenomenon, one can see that agricultural O2O is in full swing. Original ecological agricultural products and high-quality agricultural products are generating a new wave of wealth-creation opportunities through mobile e-commerce, community e-commerce and the like. Chu Orange, Liu Peach and Pan Apple once led the trend for a time, and new agricultural planting and sales models keep emerging one after another. However, one foundation of agricultural e-commerce is the quality of the agricultural products themselves. This inevitably requires farmers to raise their level of agricultural technology. Awarding professional titles to farmers and promoting the quality improvement of professional farmers has thus become a new need of the times.

To make farmers willing to become professional farmers and willing to participate in agricultural professional title evaluation, they must first be enabled to live a decent and dignified life. This requires two drivers: first, interest-driven, and second, honor-driven. In terms of interests, the government should give professional farmers real preferential policies of genuine gold and silver, with those holding higher professional titles given more choices in loans, training and other aspects. In terms of honor, more methods such as professional title evaluation should be used to confer honor, making professional farmers a respectable occupation. Entering the ranks of professional farmers requires a certain threshold; even if the threshold is not high, it will still show that "professional farmer" is a relatively independent type of work, which helps expand the source pool of professional farmers.

Rural development has opportunities, and talent is the key. This requires us to think of more ways, give more preferential policies, and join forces from multiple sides, using various methods including agricultural professional title evaluation to jointly promote the development of professional farmers.