Rural talent outflow is severe: how can the challenge of cultivating professional farmers be solved?

The difference between farmers and new-type professional farmers is that the former practice slash-and-burn farming and are tillers; the latter possess agricultural technical expertise, understand management, and know how to run 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 all parts of 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 hiring as university student 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 appeal, money and effort are spent but it is hard to win favor.

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

Agriculture-related majors' students are unwilling to engage in farming

First, related school majors have severely shrunk. All the previous agricultural technology 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 majors in food technology and testing, landscape engineering technology, animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, biotechnology and application, and feed and animal nutrition. In reality, it hangs the signboard 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 also retained only the single major of agricultural product quality testing.

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 certain province, in the famous “211” agricultural university, agriculture-related majors account for only one-third. Those involving variety improvement, soil fertility science, and the promotion and application of new technologies account for less than one-third of agriculture-related majors. The major 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 into mass organizations, and the identity of township agricultural technology personnel changed from public institution staffing to members of society. 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 Volunteer” program, and the “University Student Village Official” program, some university graduates were attracted, especially graduates of agricultural colleges. However, it must be acknowledged that most of these university students are neither willing to become “tillers” nor willing to remain in rural areas. In the eyes of traditional farmers, they cannot do the work of sowing grain and planting seeds, enduring sun and rain, and doing dirty and smelly labor; 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 officials, 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 it voluntarily, but entered agricultural colleges due to college entrance examination scores or family economic constraints. Therefore, there is essentially a mentality of looking down on agriculture. For example, among students who graduated over the past 5 years from agriculture-related majors at an agricultural university in a certain province, less than 3% returned to rural areas to engage in planting and breeding. The figure for vocational and technical colleges and secondary vocational schools is basically zero. Many university graduates would rather fail to find a job than return home to farm.

Fewer and fewer officials understand agriculture

First, grassroots agricultural management personnel have been lost. Since the household contract responsibility system was introduced and especially since the abolition of the agricultural tax, after farmers had suffered enough from forced planting and breeding, they began to say “the party committees and governments at all levels should not manage two things”: what to plant and what to raise should not be managed by party committees and governments at all levels, and whether to adopt new varieties and new technologies should not be managed by party committees and governments at all levels. As a result, most township agricultural technology service centers exist in name only, and many professional and technical personnel at township agricultural technology stations have changed posts or moved to other jobs. Among the 200 township agricultural technology service centers surveyed, none still had professional and technical personnel.

Second, departments have been downsized. In a certain province, in counties and cities dominated by industry, the sections, institutes, and stations of agricultural departments have already been abolished. Although there are still thirty or forty people, about 90% have been transferred to departments such as development and reform and investment promotion, as well as industrial parks. In agricultural counties, although the staffing 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 before 1998 from an agricultural university and agricultural technology school in a certain province, less than 1% are still in county and city agricultural departments. Take a certain county as an example: in the past, the county agricultural bureau, agricultural machinery bureau, water conservancy bureau, forestry bureau, and animal husbandry bureau together had 36 agriculture-related departments under them, with 1,592 people on the payroll. Today, only 3 departments remain: the agricultural bureau, water affairs bureau, and forestry bureau, with more than 100 people on the payroll.

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