How to attract young talents back to the countryside

Who will farm tomorrow? Apart from the imprint of identity discrimination and the relatively low efficiency of the agricultural industry, what are the other reasons why young people do not return to the countryside to engage in agriculture? How to attract young talents back to rural agriculture?

Recently, the reporter visited the "second generation of farmers" successors of relatively high-benefit cooperatives and leading business owners in Shanxi. Their brave return not only provides a talent guarantee for the sustainability of family-run agriculture, but also a market drive for farmers to change from identity to career under the background of the times.

Come back, but there are different ways to return.

After graduating from Hebei University of Science and Technology, Lu Hao, who was scheduled to go abroad, took another year of IELTS training in Beijing. While he was applying for a visa, his father told him to go home and raise chickens.

Lu Hao, 29, is currently the general manager of Shanxi Elephant Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Group. Elephant Group is a national key leading enterprise in agricultural industrialization, which involves livestock and poultry breeding, feed production and sales, biopharmaceutical and other fields, with sales revenue exceeding 5 billion yuan in 2013.

In 2009, Lu Hao returned to the village to catch up with the rapid expansion of Elephant. He experienced the transformation from a student to a new type of professional farmer: being called up by his father in the middle of the night to observe the growth of broilers and dealing with farmers every day.

Ruojuan, a native of Wuxiang County, an old revolutionary base, is engaged in the teaching profession after graduating from Shanxi Changzhi College. Father Kuo Yongqing's Sanliwan Cooperative often summoned her to deal with some daily affairs. Come and go, Bou Juan told her father that she wanted to open a direct sales experience store in the city and participate in the operation and sales of the cooperative.

Suppressing his delight, Bao Yongqing said to his daughter faintly, "if you think it's right, do it."

Sanliwan planting professional cooperative organic planting base covers 216 administrative villages in Wuxiang, Qinxian, Yushe and other counties, mainly growing black millet, black wheat, black corn, black potato, black sweet potato and so on. Shanxi modern agricultural products processing technology research and development center test and demonstration base, national demonstration cooperative.

Ding long, 30, majored in e-commerce from the University of Wollongong, Australia. When his annual salary in a foreign company in Shanghai exceeded 100000 yuan, his father, Ding Tuobao, acted decisively.

Ding Tuobao's fruit industry professional cooperative is a national farmers' professional cooperative demonstration society, mainly engaged in grape seedling introduction, fruit sales, agricultural technology training and so on. A few days ago, the annual sales of brand grapes exceeded 40 million yuan.

At a family gathering during the Spring Festival in 2008, Ding Tuobao showed his cards to his son-- back after a few drinks. Mother echoed beside her.

Because of his parents' nagging and hard bubbles, Ding long finally put down his packed luggage.

"Don't think about it. I'll give you and your wife 1 million yuan a year when you come back to grow dates, buy an apartment in the city, and get a car." Li Ning's mobile phone rang when he worked for a construction company in Shanghai after graduating from Beijing Geely University. Father Li Changwa laid out attractive conditions.

Li Changwa, a well-known jujube grower in Linqu County, Shanxi Province, has lived a good life with the help of science and technology for 30 years. His "Changyan" fresh jujube planting cooperative has 30 mu of jujube orchards, with an income of 70,000 to 80,000 yuan per mu of land, and drives the surrounding farmers to get rich together. Li Changwa wants to be the successor to this industry.

Li Ning said that he had never thought of going back to his hometown for farming, but decided to "half return" in the face of his father's temptation-go back first, develop well, and then take his wife back.

The happiness of family under the support of modern agriculture

When the reporter saw Lu Hao in the summer of 2014, he had gradually entered the role. Jia Mingjin, chief economist in charge of industrialization at the Shanxi Provincial Department of Agriculture, said that in recent years, Lu Hao has brought new impetus to elephants in the application and management of computer technology.

"I started to engage in planting technology. I'm a layman." In 2010, Li Ning, who has some experience, wants to try a ring peeling technique that can control growth to improve the fruit setting rate of jujube trees. Under the dissuasion of his father, he first took an acre of land to do the experiment. To his surprise, the output of that year was only half of that of previous years.

Subsequently, Li Ning chose to go to Shandong and Hebei to learn greenhouse construction and scientific management planting techniques. After analyzing the pros and cons, he resolutely updated the greenhouse.

"adding a film to the original insulation layer of the greenhouse can reduce the high cost of quilt due to electricity consumption and maintenance, and improve the rate of return." Standing in the greenhouse, Li Ning skillfully fiddled with jujube branches and leaves, dark skin with a pair of black cloth shoes, there is no sign of city life.

In 2013, the entire jujube industry in Linqu was defeated by the impact of new jujube varieties in Dali County, Shaanxi Province. Li Ning realized that regional and large-scale planting must seek variety renewal and quality improvement. Then the second generation varieties of winter jujube were replaced on their own jujube trees.

"there are also playing brands and expanding channels." Li Ning set up Jinci jujube company to build its own brand. Next, he will develop e-commerce so that customers can see the production of dates and receive fresh dates at home.

Watching Li Ning do jujube industry brilliantly, Li Changwa relieved her son to take over and 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 has a bumper harvest, it also enjoys the happiness of the family. Li Ning said: "it is not easy to be a farmer, but to be a good farmer, the sense of achievement is much greater than a part-time job."

The complementarity and running-in between father and son

Ding Tuobao's success that year was related to taking the lead in signing an agricultural super docking contract with a supermarket in Taiyuan. But Cheng and Xiao, he lost, Xiao he. The threshold of the supermarket is getting higher and higher, not to enter the supermarket is to die, to go in is to die: for quite a long time, entering the supermarket not only does not make money, but also pastes money.

Whether to continue to stick to the supermarket is placed in front of Lao Ding. "you can't let go of the supermarket market!" After the inspection, Ding long found that "grapes are easy to rot and wear out." The loss is borne by oneself, and the income is only 3-5 points. If we solve the problem of loss control, there will be profit. What shall I do? Improve the enthusiasm of the staff! "

Ding long formulated a set of measures: implement salary reform, linking promoters' wages to wear and tear and profits. Since the second year, not only the salary of supermarket promoters has risen from more than 600 yuan to more than 3000 yuan, but also the profit of grape sales in the supermarket has more than doubled.

After the trial, the diversification of sales channels and the development of online shopping have become Ding long's new idea.

Ding Tuobao is not optimistic: fresh products do online shopping unlike industrial products, defective rate can be controlled, in case customers do not recognize grapes, how to deal with it?

"as long as we improve the packaging and cold chain technology during transportation, it will be feasible!" Lao Ding's worries failed to dispel Ding long's thoughts and persistence, so he simply let him go to experiment. At present, he is discussing cooperation with SF Express.

"Grape is a primary agricultural product, and the risk is relatively high. with the rise in planting costs and labor costs, there will be little profit space for this kind of pure agriculture. When you take over, you not only have to keep the industry, but also to make it develop better."

It is Ding long's goal to make the grape into another business card of Qingxu and match it with vinegar.

The contradiction between Ding long's growing restlessness and Ding Tuobao has become an annoyance in the development of cooperatives. The father favored the land, plant and equipment, and the son respected the product market brand, so the cooperative moved forward in the conflict between the father and the son around the business philosophy, industrial vision and even what can really stimulate the enthusiasm of farmers.

The way for professional farmers to become younger

Jia Mingjin is an administrative official who has the experience of deputy secretary of rural branch and has been engaged in "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" for more than 30 years. He said that the restlessness of Ding long and Li Ning is precisely the initiation of entrepreneurship in Shanxi's characteristic agricultural industry, and the conflict between the father and son of the two cooperatives is the restlessness before the development of modern agricultural management ideas. It is necessary to see the new atmosphere of younger professional farmers brought about by succession, indicating that the balance of young people's career choice is beginning to tilt towards modern agriculture, but the young people in several stories are basically the successors of cooperatives for the cultivation and processing of characteristic agricultural products such as leading enterprises and fruits, so we should also see the dilemma of the successors of pure grain-growing and pig-raising cooperatives, and there should also be certain methods and policies to guide practical problems such as who will grow grain and who will raise pigs. Let the knowledgeable young people see hope, then the young people who come back in the village can become the norm.

A person in the industry who has been engaged in the observation of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" for many years commented that with the promotion of mechanization, the labor intensity of agriculture is decreasing, educated youth with a rural growth background, urban life experience, and understanding of what urban people need. Familiar with the marketing model and advanced management concepts, parents understand technology and farmers, the comparative benefits of modern agriculture are also on the rise, urban employment may not be higher than agricultural income. At the same time, we should solve the problem that young people feel inconvenient to rural life, which should be a way to see and touch the return of rural youth and agricultural modernization.

Although there is still a long way to go, and even there will be twists and turns and running-in in this process, the young people who come back from the village have taken the first step, which is doomed. Their story is a microcosm of the era in which China catalyses a new type of professional farmers: their joy is the Chinese joy in the process of farmers' transformation from identity to career; their sadness is the Chinese sadness in the process of farmers' transformation from identity to career. Their labor pains are the Chinese labor pains in the process of farmers' transformation from identity to career.