Industry talent gap is as high as hundreds of thousands

  The brain drain of agricultural machinery equipment is serious and urgently needs first-class disciplines

  Our reporter Zhang Ye and intern Ji Tianyu

  "We invest 150 million yuan in research and development every year and introduce 150 professionals." Speaking of talents, Hu Biyou, deputy general manager of Jiangsu World Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd., feels complicated, because he can't keep it. "It's also about studying mechanical engineering. The treatment and social status of agricultural machinery factories and automobile factories are too different."

  This phenomenon is also common in colleges and universities. Take Jiangsu University as an example. This university has trained my country’s first batch of agricultural machinery undergraduates, masters, and the first agricultural machinery doctors and post-doctors, and has delivered nearly 90,000 agricultural machinery equipment talents and more than 1/3 of the country’s leading agricultural machinery enterprise management. By. However, in recent years, many agricultural machinery majors have tried their best to change their majors after entering the school.

  Insufficient talents and scientific and technological support are the main reasons for the inadequate original innovation ability of my country's agricultural machinery equipment industry and the weak competitiveness of the industry. On the contrary, the lack of profitability of the agricultural machinery and equipment industry has aggravated the decline in the attractiveness of the industry and the loss of talents, resulting in the industry's lack of high-end talent support.

  The cultivation of agricultural equipment talents goes downhill year by year

  The key to accelerating the upgrading of the agricultural equipment industry depends on talents.

  However, due to the adjustment of national disciplines and changes in the economic development situation, the number of personnel training in the field of agricultural equipment has been on a downward trend since reaching its peak in the 1990s.

  A large number of agricultural machinery research institutes have been transformed to survive, and agricultural machinery research institutes below the provincial level have basically disappeared. Several universities with pure agricultural machinery disciplines have changed their names. For example, Beijing Agricultural Machinery College was renamed Beijing Agricultural Engineering University and then merged to form China Agricultural University and Shandong Agricultural Machinery The college was renamed Shandong Institute of Engineering and then merged to form Shandong University of Technology, Luoyang Agricultural Machinery College was renamed Luoyang Institute of Technology and then merged to form Henan University of Science and Technology, Sichuan Agricultural Machinery College was renamed Sichuan Institute of Technology and then merged to form Xihua University. The agricultural machinery disciplines of agricultural colleges and universities have also switched their disciplines, and there are fewer and fewer universities and disciplines focusing on the field of agricultural equipment. The original agricultural machinery technology innovation system has been broken, and the new system is not perfect, and the loss of agricultural machinery technology talents is serious. The ability of technological innovation has been greatly weakened.

  At the same time, it is difficult to recruit students for agricultural machinery majors in colleges and universities, and the flow of trained talents to other industries is also prominent.

  Take the 2019 national postgraduate enrollment as an example. Among the 863 postgraduate enrollment units in the country, only 28 enrolled postgraduates majoring in agricultural mechanization (agricultural equipment), and the number of enrollment plans is less than 700, which only accounts for the total number of enrollment that year (about The enrollment of related undergraduate majors is also not optimistic. In 2019 alone, the enrollment of graduate and undergraduate students majoring in agricultural machinery equipment accounted for 0.1%, forming a vicious circle.

  According to the forecast of "Manufacturing Talent Development Planning Guide", by 2025, the talent gap of my country's agricultural machinery and equipment industry will reach 440,000. Due to the particularity of the industry, the average annual profit rate is less than 5%, which makes the agricultural machinery equipment industry unable to attract high-end talents.

  "Currently, weak basic research on agricultural machinery and equipment, insufficient original innovation capabilities, lack of key core technologies, shortage of agricultural machinery and equipment talents, and low integration of agricultural machinery and agronomy have become bottlenecks restricting the development of agricultural mechanization in my country," said Yan Xiaohong, president of Jiangsu University. The reason lies in technology and talents.

  At present, the quantity and quality of talents cultivated in the field of agricultural machinery equipment in my country's universities, and the research on the theory and technology of agricultural machinery equipment industry development by universities in China, are not enough to support the industrial upgrade of my country's agricultural machinery equipment.

  Cultivating high-quality talents urgently need first-class disciplines

  Speeding up the construction of first-class disciplines in agricultural machinery and equipment and accelerating the cultivation of high-level innovative talents in the field of agricultural machinery and equipment are major issues that must be resolved urgently. However, at present, the agricultural engineering discipline where agricultural machinery is located, only two disciplines are selected as national first-class disciplines, accounting for 0.43% of all first-class disciplines in the country, and the main characteristics and advantages of these two disciplines are relatively small, and it is difficult to lead and drive the entire agricultural machinery Equipment field.

  Yan Xiaohong suggested that the country should vigorously strengthen the cultivation of agricultural machinery talents and scientific and technological breakthroughs to provide a strong guarantee for the transformation and upgrading of my country's agricultural machinery equipment industry.

  The first is to focus on urgent strategic needs and incorporate the cultivation of agricultural machinery talents into the targeted public welfare talent training plan. Establish a special enrollment plan for agricultural machinery, carry out free agricultural machinery undergraduate, master, and doctoral training for the agricultural machinery equipment manufacturing industry, and set up a special scholarship for agricultural machinery talent training to reserve enough talents for the high-quality development of my country's agricultural machinery industry.

  The second is to face the "three modernizations" and strengthen the construction of first-class disciplines in agricultural machinery and equipment. In the current situation that there are only two first-class agricultural engineering disciplines in the country, it is recommended to add 2-3 agricultural engineering disciplines with agricultural machinery as the main feature and strong comprehensive strength to be included in the national first-class discipline construction sequence.

  The third is to root in the needs of enterprises and strengthen special support for scientific research on high-end agricultural machinery equipment. Establish a national key laboratory or collaborative innovation center for intelligent agricultural machinery equipment and technology, vigorously improve my country's key core technology research and development capabilities in the field of agricultural machinery equipment, and form a key technology research and development base for the industry in my country and a leading high ground for innovation and development.

  General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, “China’s modernization cannot be separated from agricultural modernization. The key to agricultural modernization lies in science and technology and talents. We must put the development of agricultural technology in a more prominent position, vigorously promote agricultural mechanization and intelligentization, and insert technology into agricultural modernization. "Wings" and has repeatedly emphasized the need to develop modern agricultural machinery and equipment, and accelerate the improvement of agricultural material and technical equipment. The State Council promulgated the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Promotion of Agricultural Mechanization and the Transformation and Upgrading of Agricultural Machinery Equipment Industry" and other policies, putting forward new and higher requirements for agricultural mechanization. In this context, experts suggest that my country must plan the layout of agricultural machinery scientific and technological innovation from the height of the national strategy, and systematically sort out problems such as the core technology of agricultural machinery.