Why is it hard to keep college graduates in agriculture despite free tuition?

To attract and cultivate agricultural talent, since 2006 Zhejiang has funded a free-tuition policy each year for students from the province enrolled in university agriculture-related majors in crop cultivation and livestock breeding. But a recent survey by the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Agriculture showed that between 2011 and 2013, among the 6943 graduates who benefited from the policy, only 2485 "stayed in agriculture," a proportion of less than 40 percent. Free tuition struggles to draw college students into agriculture, and in the face of this brain drain, many teachers at agriculture and forestry colleges can only sigh.

A lack of elite talent has long been one of the biggest worries in the development of modern agriculture, and agriculture and forestry colleges, as the "cradle" of professional talent, have also repeatedly suffered enrollment crises in recent years. The free-tuition policy was introduced precisely to break this deadlock, yet these graduates seem "unconvinced." Researchers believe this is mainly related to three factors: the low appeal of employment at agricultural enterprises, the slow replenishment of grassroots agricultural technology extension personnel, and the gap between schools' program offerings and employment demand.

Data show that among the 2485 graduates employed in agriculture-related fields, 85% chose to work at enterprises. Most of these jobs are on the front lines of agricultural production, breeding and marketing, with poor working environments, low technical content, long working hours, low wages and benefits, unsound management mechanisms and a lack of intrinsic appeal; even if graduates take their first job in agriculture, job-hopping afterward is frequent.

Compared with enterprises, grassroots agricultural technology extension agencies, as public institutions, still hold considerable "allure" for graduates because of their institutional guarantees. But the survey found that these positions are generally filled through unified open recruitment examinations by county-level personnel departments, are replenished slowly, lean toward general majors in their program requirements, and require a bachelor's degree or above; the "high threshold" discourages many graduates.

In addition, researchers also found that with the development of modern agriculture, Zhejiang's demand for graduates in agricultural product processing, development and marketing, sightseeing agriculture, facility agriculture, circular agriculture, and agricultural product quality and safety has been increasing year by year. But Zhejiang's current situation is that the vast majority of programs remain concentrated in crop cultivation and livestock breeding majors such as agricultural technology, horticulture, animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, flowers and fruit, and tea, leaving a gap between program offerings and employment demand.

How can agriculture students be attracted into agriculture? The research team suggests that relevant national departments issue policies encouraging college students to pursue employment and entrepreneurship in modern agriculture, especially increasing financial subsidies for college students working in less-developed areas, so that agriculture becomes a "decent job"; for building the grassroots agricultural technology extension workforce, methods such as separate recruitment and examinations and targeted training of grassroots agricultural technology personnel could be adopted; in addition, reforming the talent training model of vocational education is also crucial. Agriculture-related colleges should actively connect with agricultural departments and enterprises, reasonably set up majors according to actual production needs, jointly formulate training goals, jointly build curriculum systems and teaching content, jointly implement the training process, jointly evaluate training quality, and explore an "order-based" training model.