How can rural areas attract young talent to return?

Who will farm the land tomorrow? Beyond the stigma of status discrimination and the low comparative returns of the agricultural industry, what other reasons keep young people from returning to rural areas to work in agriculture? How can rural agriculture attract young talent to return?

Recently, a reporter visited Shanxi to look into relatively high-return cooperatives and the "second-generation farmer" successors of leading enterprise owners. Their brave return not only provides talent support for the sustainability of family-run farming, but is also, against the backdrop of a great era, a market-driven shift of farmers from a status to a profession.

They came back, but in different ways

After graduating from Hebei University of Science and Technology, Lyu Hao had planned to go abroad and spent another year in Beijing on IELTS training. Just as he was applying for a visa, his father called him home to raise chickens.

Lyu Hao, 29, is now general manager of Shanxi Daxiang Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Group. Daxiang Group is a national key leading enterprise in agricultural industrialization, with businesses spanning livestock and poultry breeding, feed production and sales, biopharmaceuticals and other fields; in 2013 its sales revenue exceeded 5 billion yuan.

In 2009, after returning to the village, Lyu Hao caught up with Daxiang's rapid expansion. He went through the transformation from student to new-type professional farmer: being woken by his father in the middle of the night to observe the growth of broiler chickens, and dealing with farmers every day...

Bao Juan, from Wuxiang County in the old revolutionary base area, worked as a teacher after graduating with a bachelor's degree from Shanxi Changzhi University. Her father Bao Yongqing's Sanliwan Cooperative often called on her to handle some daily affairs. Over time, Bao Juan told her father that she wanted to open a direct-sales experience store in the city and take part in the cooperative's operations and sales.

Bao Yongqing held back his delight and said lightly to his daughter, if you think it's suitable, then do it.

The organic planting base of Sanliwan Planting Professional Cooperative covers 216 administrative villages in Wuxiang, Qinxian, Yushe and other counties, mainly growing black millet, black wheat, black corn, black potatoes, black sweet potatoes and so on. It is an experimental demonstration base of the Shanxi Modern Agricultural Product Processing Technology Research and Development Center and a national-level demonstration cooperative.

Ding Long, 30, holds a master's degree in e-commerce from the University of Wollongong in Australia. When he was earning more than 100,000 yuan a year working for a foreign company in Shanghai, his father Ding Tuobao "decisively" made his move.

Ding Tuobao's Riyian Fruit Industry Professional Cooperative is a national demonstration cooperative for farmers' professional cooperatives, mainly engaged in the introduction of grape seedlings, fruit sales, agricultural technical training and so on. The annual sales of Riyian brand grapes exceed 40 million yuan.

At a family gathering during the 2008 Spring Festival, after a few drinks, Ding Tuobao laid his cards on the table with his son - come back. His mother chimed in beside him.

His parents' nagging and persistent coaxing finally made Ding Long put down his packed luggage.

"Stop thinking about it. Come back and grow jujubes and I'll give you and your wife 1 million yuan a year, buy you a flat in the city, and throw in a car." Li Ning's phone rang. He had worked at a construction company in Shanghai after graduating from Beijing Geely University. His father Li Changwa put forward tempting conditions.

Li Changwa is a well-known jujube-growing expert in Linyi County, Shanxi. Over 30 years he has boosted agriculture through science and technology, and the whole family has lived well by growing jujubes. His "Changyan" fresh jujube planting cooperative has 30 mu of jujube orchard, with income per mu reaching 70,000 to 80,000 yuan, and it has also led surrounding farmers to prosperity together. Li Changwa was thinking about a successor for this business.

Li Ning said he had never thought of returning to the countryside to farm, but faced with his father's lure he decided to "half return" - go back first, and bring his wife back once things developed well.

Family happiness supported by modern agriculture

In the summer of 2014, when the reporter met Lyu Hao, he had gradually grown into his role. Jia Mingjin, chief economist of the Shanxi Provincial Department of Agriculture in charge of industrialization, said that in recent years Lyu Hao has brought new momentum to Daxiang in both computer technology application and management.

"I was a layman when I started with planting techniques." In 2010, with some experience, Li Ning wanted to make a bigger attempt, testing a girdling technique that can control growth to improve the fruit-setting rate of jujube trees. At his father's urging, he first tested it on one mu of land. To his surprise, that year's yield was only half of previous years.

Afterward, Li Ning chose to study greenhouse construction and scientific management and planting techniques in Shandong and Hebei. After analyzing the pros and cons, he decisively upgraded the heated greenhouses.

"Adding a layer of film on top of the original insulation layer of the heated greenhouse can reduce the high costs of cotton quilts from electricity use and maintenance, and raise the rate of return." Standing in the greenhouse, Li Ning deftly handled the jujube branches and leaves, his dark skin paired with a pair of black cloth shoes, with no trace of city life left.

In 2013, the entire jujube industry in Linyi was defeated under the impact of new jujube varieties from Dali County, Shaanxi. Li Ning realized that regionalized, large-scale planting had to seek variety renewal and quality improvement. He then replaced his own jujube trees with the second-generation winter jujube variety.

"And build a brand, expand channels." Li Ning founded Jincui Jujube Industry Company to build his own brand. Next, he will develop e-commerce so that customers can see the jujube production process at home and receive fresh jujubes.

Seeing Li Ning run the jujube business impressively, Li Changwa confidently handed the reins to his son and comfortably became a technical consultant.

In September 2010, Li Ning's wife also quit her job in Shanghai and came back to help. Now, while the whole family enjoys a bumper harvest, they also enjoy family harmony. Li Ning said: "Being a farmer is not easy, but if you do it well, the sense of achievement is much greater than working for others."

Complementarity and adjustment between father and son

Ding Tuobao's success back then was related to being among the first to sign an agricultural-supermarket direct supply contract with a supermarket in Taiyuan. But success and failure come from the same source. The supermarket threshold kept rising: not entering the supermarket was waiting to die, while entering was seeking death: for a fairly long time, entering the supermarket not only failed to make money but required subsidizing it.

Whether to continue holding on to the supermarket was placed before old Ding. "We can't let go of the supermarket market!" After investigation, Ding Long found, "Grapes rot easily, so losses are relatively large. The losses are all borne by ourselves, and what we earn is only 3 to 5 points. Solve the loss control and there is profit. How? Raise employee enthusiasm!"

Ding Long worked out a set of measures: carry out salary reform, linking promoter wages to losses and profits. Starting the second year, not only did supermarket promoters' wages rise from more than 600 yuan to more than 3,000 yuan, but the profit from grape sales in supermarkets also more than doubled.

After this small trial, diversifying sales channels and developing online shopping became Ding Long's new idea.

Ding Tuobao was not optimistic: fresh products sold online are not like industrial goods, where the defect rate can be controlled. If customers do not approve of the grapes, how do you handle it?

"It's feasible as long as packaging and cold-chain technology are improved during transport!" Old Ding's concerns could not dispel Ding Long's idea and persistence, so he simply let him experiment. At present, he is negotiating cooperation with SF Express.

"Grapes are primary agricultural products, and the risk is relatively high. As planting costs and labor costs rise, the profit margin of this purely agricultural business will become very small. Taking over this business is not just about preserving it, but also about letting it develop better."

Making grapes another calling card of Qingxu, to match its vinegar, is Ding Long's goal.

Ding Long's growing restlessness and Ding Tuobao's contradictions have become troubles in the cooperative's development. The father favors land, factories and equipment, while the son admires product markets and brands. The cooperative thus moves forward amid conflicts between father and son over business philosophy, industrial vision, and even what can truly stimulate farmers' enthusiasm.

The path to younger professional farmers

Jia Mingjin is an administrative official with experience as a deputy secretary of a rural Party branch and more than 30 years in "three rural" work. He said that the restlessness of Ding Long and Li Ning is precisely the stirring of entrepreneurial spirit in Shanxi's characteristic agricultural industry, and the conflict between father and son in the two cooperatives is the ferment before modern agricultural business concepts gather force. One should see the new atmosphere of younger professional farmers brought by succession, showing that young people's career scales are beginning to tilt toward modern agriculture. But the young people in these stories are basically successors in leading enterprises and cooperatives growing and processing characteristic agricultural products such as fruit, so one should also see the predicament of successors in purely grain-growing and pig-raising cooperatives. Realistic issues such as who will grow grain and who will raise pigs also need certain methods and policy guidance, so that knowledgeable young people can see hope, and only then can young people returning to the village become the norm.

An industry observer who has spent many years observing "three rural" issues commented that with the advance of mechanization, the labor intensity of agriculture is decreasing. Educated young people with a rural upbringing and urban life experience understand what city people need, are familiar with marketing models, and have advanced management concepts. Their elders understand technology and farmers, the comparative returns of modern agriculture are also rising, urban employment is not necessarily better paid than agriculture, and if the problems that make young people find rural life inconvenient are also solved, this should be a currently visible and tangible path for the return of rural youth and the modernization of agriculture.

Although the road is still long, and there will even be twists and adjustments in this process, young people returning to the village have already taken the first step. It is destined that their stories are a microcosm against the backdrop of the great era of China catalyzing new-type professional farmers: their joy is China's joy in the process of farmers changing from a status to a profession; their sorrow is China's sorrow in the process of farmers changing from a status to a profession; their labor pains are China's labor pains in the process of farmers changing from a status to a profession.