Rural brain drain poses challenges to cultivating professional farmers

Solving the problem of cultivating professional farmers

The difference between farmers and new-type professional farmers is that the former practice slash-and-burn farming and are peasants; the latter possess agricultural technical expertise, understand management, and know how to operate a business, making them interdisciplinary talent. To cultivate such talent, one cannot take the old path of agricultural technology extension training

This year, the Government Work Report once again emphasized “cultivating professional farmers.” In 2012, the No. 1 Central Document proposed “vigorously cultivating new-type professional farmers.” In August of the same year, the General Office of the Ministry of Agriculture issued the “Pilot Work Plan for Cultivating New-Type Professional Farmers,” and on the basis of voluntary applications from across the country, ultimately determined 100 pilot counties (cities, districts). However, to date, only some provinces and municipalities such as Hunan, Anhui, and Shaanxi have issued “Opinions on Accelerating the Cultivation of New-Type Professional Farmers.”

At present, the measures generally adopted for cultivating professional farmers are: first, adopting the training model of “vocational colleges + a number of bases” to conduct “theory + practical operation” training; second, strengthening agricultural vocational skill certification; third, establishing a talent growth mechanism for professional farmers. For students graduating from colleges and secondary specialized schools, those who obtain a professional farmer certificate and engage in agricultural production and operation for more than three years shall, under equal conditions, be given priority in recruitment as university graduate village officials; fourth, establishing special funds for cultivating new-type professional farmers. In the specific implementation of these measures, due to a lack of targeting and attractiveness, they cost money and effort without pleasing anyone.

Currently, the greatest contradiction in cultivating professional farmers is that, objectively, 1.8 billion mu of arable land cannot accommodate around 500 million laborers; subjectively, rural development needs to retain professional farmers with relatively higher education levels. Yet rural talent with relatively higher education levels is more easily attracted away by cities. The challenge of cultivating professional farmers is enormous.

Agriculture-related majors' students unwilling to take up farming

First, relevant school programs have severely shrunk. All the former agricultural technical schools in a certain province were merged into vocational and technical colleges. After the merger, only one vocational and technical college retained an agricultural technology department, offering food technology and testing, landscape engineering technology, animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, biotechnology and application, and feed and animal nutrition majors. In reality, it is a case of hanging up the sign of an agricultural technology department while taking the shortcut of livestock and poultry breeding, food processing, and landscape engineering. Other vocational and technical colleges that retained agriculture-related majors only kept the single major of agricultural product quality testing.

⟦NL> County and city vocational technical middle schools have not offered agriculture-related majors. Short-term training for migrant workers organized by counties and cities also does not involve agricultural technology. In a well-known “211” agricultural university in this province, agriculture-related majors account for only one-third. Those involving variety improvement, soil fertility science, and promotion and application of new technologies account for less than one-third of agriculture-related majors. The program offerings of other agricultural universities and vocational and technical colleges across the country are similar to those of a certain province.

Second, institutional reform has cut off the path of return. In 2005, township agricultural technology service centers changed from public institutions to mass organizations, and the status of township agricultural technology personnel changed from public institution staffing to social individuals. The most direct impact of this reform was cutting off the path for agriculture-related graduates to return to agriculture. After 2007, with the implementation of the “Three Supports and One Assistance” program, the “Western Development Program Volunteers,” and the “University Graduate Village Official” program, some university graduates were attracted, especially graduates of agricultural colleges. However, it must be acknowledged that most of these university graduates are neither willing to be “peasants” nor willing to stay in rural areas. In the eyes of traditional farmers, they cannot do the work of sowing and harvesting, enduring sun and rain, and getting dirty and smelly; in the eyes of agricultural technology experts, their specialties and their levels do not meet the “standard” for agricultural technology research and extension; in the eyes of many village cadres, they are “superfluous people” with no place to go for the time being.

Third, employment misunderstandings have still not been eliminated. Many students studying agricultural majors did not choose to do so voluntarily, but entered agricultural colleges due to college entrance examination scores or family economic constraints. Therefore, there inherently exists a mentality of looking down on agriculture. For example, of the students who graduated over the past 5 years from the agriculture-related majors of an agricultural university in a certain province, less than 3% returned to rural areas to engage in planting and breeding. For vocational and technical colleges and secondary vocational schools, the figure is basically zero. Many university graduates would rather remain unemployed than return to their hometowns to farm.

Fewer and fewer officials understand agriculture

First, grassroots agricultural management personnel have been lost. Since the household responsibility system was introduced and especially since the abolition of the agricultural tax, farmers, after experiencing the bitter consequences of forced planting and breeding, began to say “we don't want party committees and governments at all levels to manage two things”: what to plant and what to raise, they don't want party committees and governments at all levels to manage; whether to adopt new varieties and new technologies, they don't want party committees and governments at all levels to manage. Most township agricultural technology service centers therefore exist in name only, and many professional and technical personnel at township agricultural technology stations have transferred to other posts or changed jobs. Of the 200 township agricultural technology service centers surveyed, none still had professional and technical personnel.

Second, departmental staffing has been reduced. In a certain province, in counties and cities dominated by industry, the agriculture departments' sections, offices, and stations have been abolished. Although there are still thirty or forty people, about 90% have been reassigned to departments such as development and reform and investment promotion, as well as industrial parks. In agricultural counties, although the establishment categories are relatively complete, about 90% no longer engage in work related to the promotion and application of agricultural technology. Of the graduates assigned to jobs by an agricultural university and agricultural technical school in a certain province before 1998, less than 1% are still in county and city agriculture departments. Taking a certain county as an example, in the past, the county's agriculture bureau, agricultural machinery bureau, water conservancy bureau, forestry bureau, and animal husbandry bureau had a total of 36 agriculture-related departments with 1,592 authorized staff. Today, only 3 departments remain - the agriculture bureau, water affairs bureau, and forestry bureau - with just over one hundred authorized staff.

Third, functions have changed. Although county and city agriculture departments still have the responsibility of engaging in agricultural technology extension, what they are mainly busy with is implementing laws, regulations, and policies concerning agriculture and rural economic development and agricultural mechanization development. Their role is very awkward. First, they cannot rise to a high level. The opinions and suggestions they raise fail to attract attention from all parties and cannot enter the decision-making process, wasting administrative resources in vain. Second, they cannot get down to the ground. Farmers rarely come into direct contact with them anymore, and they have become superfluous institutions and superfluous people in farmers' eyes.