China trains high-quality farmers for rural revitalization

High-quality farmers play a crucial role in driving comprehensive rural revitalization. In 2022, China trained 753,900 high-quality farmers, according to a report.

New farmers possess cultural knowledge, technical expertise and management skills, making them a dynamic force in driving rural development.

Statistics indicate that the Chinese government has invested 18.29 billion yuan (about $2.56 billion) in recent years to support training programs for nearly 8 million people.

In 2022, the proportion of high-quality farmers who obtained agricultural technical titles and national vocational qualifications increased by 6.64 and 3.46 percentage points respectively, compared to 2021.

A technician operates an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for plant protection during an activity organized by the local government to demonstrate agricultural machines in Caigongzhuang Township of Jinghai District, north China's Tianjin, June 11, 2023. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

The workforce was strengthened with the inclusion of college and vocational school graduates, as well as returning migrant workers.

Meanwhile, new digital-powered agricultural tools continue to emerge.

Bi Lixia is a renowned grain grower, as well as the head of a professional cooperative specializing in high-yield rice cultivation in Jianli city, a county-level city in central China's Hubei Province. Her cooperative has built a smart farm.

Bi stated that the utilization of advanced equipment, including a digital agricultural machinery management center, ground Internet of Things (IoT), visualized cloud platform, Beidou automatic navigation, and unmanned driving systems have facilitated the shift towards digital agriculture.

“In order to accelerate the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas through digital empowerment, upgrading rural infrastructure and enhancing the digital literacy of farmers are essential," explained Hu Yongwan, executive vice president of the Central Agricultural Broadcasting and Television School.

Hu emphasized that training content, including the use of mobile applications, agricultural e-commerce, and smart agriculture, has been integrated into the curriculum to cultivate high-quality farmers.

Over 220 million farmers nationwide have received training on mobile application skills, with 18,900 of them trained as livestreaming hosts. The "Smart Agriculture on the Cloud" app, a national agricultural science and education cloud platform, has brought access to over 8,400 online training courses that cover a wide range of agricultural industries.

Liu Guizhong, director of the Agriculture and Rural Committee of southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, said that Chongqing has partnered with Tencent to launch an agricultural tool project that focuses on training talents in practical skills. The city plans to conduct 200 training sessions for rural digital talents over the next five years, with the goal of cultivating over 20,000 new digital farmers.

"The lack of development leaders, industry pioneers, and policy experts has been identified as the key reason for the sluggish development in certain rural areas. Highly skilled farmers play a vital role in integrating individual farmers into modern agriculture," said Hu.

In 2022, 71.76 percent of highly skilled farmers actively assisted neighboring farmers by providing agricultural technical guidance and participating in agricultural product sales. This marked a significant increase of 6.72 percentage points compared to the previous year.

In 2022, the Department of Science, Technology, and Education of China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs introduced a funding project for agricultural vocational colleges. The primary objective of this project is to provide support for rural revitalization efforts.

As part of this project, 100 renowned courses taught by distinguished teachers have been made available to these colleges.

Nationwide, agricultural broadcasting and television schools enrolled 41,000 students in agricultural vocational education in 2022, with a total enrolment of 65,000 students.