How to solve the difficult problem of training professional farmers? The brain drain in rural areas is very high.

The difference between farmers and new professional farmers is that the former is a farmer with slash-and-burn cultivation, while the latter has agro-technical expertise, management and management, and is a compound talent. In order to cultivate such talents, we cannot follow the old path of agricultural technology extension and training.

This year, the government work report once again emphasizes the "cultivation of professional farmers". In 2012, the No. 1 document of the Central Committee proposed to "vigorously cultivate a new type of professional farmers". In August of the same year, the General Office of the Ministry of Agriculture issued the "pilot work Program for training New Professional Farmers". On the basis of voluntary applications from all over the country, 100 pilot counties (cities and districts) were finally identified. However, so far, only some provinces and cities such as Hunan, Anhui and Shaanxi have issued opinions on speeding up the cultivation of new-type professional farmers.

At present, the measures commonly adopted in the training of professional farmers are as follows: the first is to adopt the training mode of "vocational colleges + several bases" to carry out the training of "theory + practical operation"; the second is to strengthen the appraisal of agricultural vocational skills; the third is to establish a mechanism for the growth of professional farmers. For college and secondary school graduates, obtain professional farmer certificates and engage in agricultural production and management for more than three years, under the same conditions, give priority to the selection of university student village officials; fourth, the establishment of a new type of professional farmers training special funds. In the concrete implementation of these measures, it is difficult to please because of the lack of pertinence and attractiveness.

At present, the biggest contradiction in cultivating professional farmers is that objectively, there is no room for about 500 million workers on 1.8 billion mu of arable land; subjectively, rural development needs to leave professional farmers with a higher level of education. Rural talents with a higher level of education are more likely to be attracted by the city. The training of professional farmers has a great challenge.

Students majoring in agriculture are unwilling to learn from agriculture.

First, the school-related majors have shrunk seriously. All the former agrotechnical schools in a certain province have been merged into vocational and technical colleges. After the merger, only one vocational and technical college retains the Department of Agricultural Technology, offering majors in food technology and testing, landscape engineering technology, animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, biotechnology and application, feed and animal nutrition. In fact, it is a shortcut to livestock and poultry breeding, food processing and garden engineering under the sign of the Department of Agricultural Technology. Other vocational and technical colleges that retain agriculture-related majors also retain only the major of agricultural product quality testing.

None of the vocational and technical middle schools in counties and cities offer agriculture-related majors. The short-term training of migrant workers organized by counties and cities does not involve agricultural technology. In the province's famous "211" agricultural universities, agriculture-related majors account for only 1/3. Those involving variety improvement, soil fertilizer science, and the popularization and application of new technologies are less than 1/3 of agriculture-related majors. The specialty setting of other agricultural universities and vocational and technical colleges across the country is similar to that of a certain province.

Second, the system reform cuts off the road of return. In 2005, the township agrotechnical service center changed from a public institution to a mass organization, and the identity of township agrotechnical personnel changed from a career establishment to a social person. The most direct impact of this change is to cut off the way for agriculture-related graduates to return to agriculture. After 2007, with the implementation of the programs of "three supports and one support", "volunteers of the Western Program" and "College Student Village officials", some university graduates, especially those from agricultural colleges and universities, have been attracted. However, we have to admit that most of these college students do not want to be "farmers" nor do they want to stay in the countryside. In the eyes of traditional farmers, they cannot do dirty and smelly jobs of throwing grain and soaking in the rain; in the eyes of agricultural technology experts, their specialty and level are not up to the "standard" of agricultural technology research and popularization; in the eyes of many village cadres, they are "superfluous" who have nowhere to go for the time being.

Third, the misunderstanding of employment has not been eliminated. Many agricultural majors are not voluntary, but have no choice but to enter agricultural colleges because of their college entrance examination scores or family financial conditions. Therefore, in essence, there is the thought of neglecting agriculture. For example, less than 3% of the students who graduated from a provincial agricultural university in the past five years have returned to rural areas to engage in planting and breeding. Vocational and technical colleges and secondary vocational schools are basically zero. Many college graduates would rather not find a job than go back to their hometown to work as a farmer.

Fewer and fewer cadres understand agriculture.

First, the loss of grass-roots agricultural managers. Since the abolition of the agricultural tax, farmers have experienced the hardships of forcibly planting and breeding, and they have begun to "avoid the management of party committees and governments at all levels": party committees and governments at all levels should not manage what they grow and raise, and whether or not to adopt new varieties and new technologies should not be managed by party committees and governments at all levels. As a result, most of the township agrotechnical service centers exist in name only, and the professional and technical personnel of many township agrotechnical stations change jobs or change jobs. There are no professional and technical personnel in the 200 township agricultural service centers surveyed.

Second, the drawdown of the department. In a certain province, departments, institutes, and stations of agricultural departments in counties and cities dominated by industry have been cancelled. Although there are still 30 or 40 people, about 90% have been transferred to departments such as development and reform, investment promotion and industrial parks. Although agricultural counties have relatively complete categories of compilation, about 90% are no longer engaged in work related to the popularization and application of agricultural technology. Before 1998, less than 1% of the graduates from a provincial agricultural university and agricultural technology school package were still in the agricultural departments of counties and cities. Take a county as an example, in the past, the county Agriculture Bureau, Agricultural Machinery Bureau, Water Conservancy Bureau, Forestry Bureau and Animal Husbandry Bureau set up a total of 36 agriculture-related departments with a staff of 1592. Today, there are only three departments, namely, the Agriculture Bureau, the Water Bureau and the Forestry Bureau, with more than 100 people in the process.

Third, the transformation of functions. Although the agricultural departments of counties and cities still have the responsibility to popularize agricultural technology, they are mainly busy implementing the laws, regulations, principles and policies relating to the development of agriculture and rural economy and the development of agricultural mechanization. The effect is very awkward, first, the height can not go up. The opinions and suggestions put forward can not attract the attention of all parties, can not enter the decision-making process, wasting administrative resources; second, the body can not swoop down. Farmers have little direct contact with them, and they have become superfluous institutions and people in the eyes of farmers.