"how to cultivate a new type of professional agricultural mechanic" is worth asking.

In today's busy season of "three summers" and "three autumn", in the waves of wheat and rice undulating with the wind, it is hard to see sweaty farmers, who are more likely to travel back and forth to and fro with farm drivers sitting in the cab of combine harvesters. At present, the means of agricultural production in China has entered a new era of mechanized operation, the quality of agricultural machinery operators directly determines the quality of agricultural machinery operation, but also determines the quality of agricultural production to a large extent. In many areas, more than 70% of agricultural machinery drivers over the age of 50 are in short supply, and the overall quality of agricultural machinery drivers is not high enough. Therefore, it is urgent to train a team of high-quality agricultural machinists.

In recent years, the state has continuously increased its support for the work of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, coordinated and communicated with local agricultural machinery management departments and training institutions, and won support from various policies and funds, such as the cultivation of new professional farmers, "certification awards", and special agricultural mechanization training programs, and effectively promoted the development of agricultural mechanization training. The Ministry of Agriculture has carried out education and training activities on agricultural mechanization throughout the country for seven consecutive years, with an average annual training of 4 million practical agricultural machinery personnel. However, at the local level, agricultural mechanic training lacks clear special funds, and can only rely on local agricultural machinery departments to "cross the sea and show their respective abilities", which is also an important factor in the unbalanced development of agricultural mechanic training areas. It is suggested that the state should increase the public financial investment in agricultural mechanic training so as to keep up with the change of agricultural management mode and improve the ability of agricultural mechanic to serve agriculture, rural areas and farmers in an all-round way.

In order to attract more agricultural machinery operators to participate on their own initiative and further improve the practicability of training, training methods such as field operation, multi-department linkage, government-enterprise linkage and so on are more and more widely used and welcomed by agricultural mechanists. For example, through the "linkage between government and enterprises", the Ministry of Agriculture has held advanced skills training courses for agricultural machinery maintenance and training courses for directors of agricultural machinery cooperatives, which has led to the rapid improvement of the quality of agricultural machinery repairmen and agricultural machinery cooperative managers. However, it is undeniable that the current training content for agricultural machinery operators is still relatively simple, mostly tractor, combine harvester drivers and agricultural machinery repairmen, which can not meet the requirements of comprehensive mechanization. In addition, due to a variety of reasons, the current training seldom takes into account the differences of agricultural machinery operators participating in the training, especially their different cultural basis and professional knowledge, and the pertinence and systematicness of the training is not strong enough. In addition, many operators reflect that the current training is more biased towards theoretical knowledge, and if it is combined with practical operation, the effect will be further improved.

In terms of improving the ability of education and training for agricultural mechanists, local agricultural mechanization systems have adopted a variety of methods to improve the infrastructure, teaching equipment and teaching staff of training institutions. For example, Shaanxi Provincial Agricultural Machinery Bureau selects 10 agricultural mechanization schools and tractor driving training institutions every year, with an annual investment of 2 million yuan for county-level training institutions to purchase equipment, renovate and expand training venues, and increase the number of training people by more than 500 people a year. However, as early as more than a decade ago, the training system for agricultural machinery operators in our country was relatively sound, and agricultural mechanization and even agricultural machinery maintenance majors were set up in all kinds of agricultural universities; among the more than 300 provincial and municipal agricultural technical secondary schools across the country, agricultural mechanization training courses were set up in agricultural machinery departments of all counties (cities and districts). With the reform of national educational institutions, these agricultural mechanization training institutions have been greatly weakened. By the end of 2014, the total number of agricultural mechanization education and training institutions nationwide had decreased by 20% compared with 2003, and the number of institutional personnel had decreased by more than 9000 compared with 2003. For a period of time in the future, the question of "who will train agricultural machinery operators" can not be ignored.

The success of any career is inseparable from the support of talents. The great cause of China's agricultural modernization also needs a large number of new professional farmers with scientific and cultural literacy, modern agricultural skills and advanced management ideas, and 54 million agricultural machinists are the core force of this team. They are not only the operators of advanced agricultural machinery, but also the operators, demonstrators and disseminators of modern agricultural technology!