Yunnan University leader calls for focus on agriculture

The progress made by various agricultural undertakings in China's border areas has made outstanding achievements in recent years, but there is still a gap that needs to be addressed between the development of those areas and other areas.

Those remarks were made recently by Lin Wenxun, deputy to the National People's Congress and Party secretary of Yunnan University – located in Kunming, capital of Southwest China's Yunnan province.

Lin – who has long been engaged in the study of agriculture, rural areas, and farmers issues – gave his thoughts in an interview with the Guangming Daily, on the sidelines of this year's two sessions.

Lin said he believed that a dynamic rural workforce was crucial.

"Having a sufficient and high-quality agricultural labor force is the key to implementing the rural revitalization strategy," Lin said. He found during a survey that the current issues – including the depletion of the agricultural labor force, the aging labor force and low education levels – were important factors of causing the gap.

In response, Lin suggested that the State put together policies to build a high-quality labor force, which could be facilitated by ensuring the sustainable development of educational resources in rural areas.

He suggested implementing a plan to improve the quality of the existing agricultural labor force. Lin said help should be given to local institutions of higher learning, vocational colleges, research institutions and other institutions to form paired assistance relationships – to cultivate local talent that would meet the needs of local industry development.

In addition, Lin proposed attracting high-quality talent who had left hometown, to return and speed up the training of professional farmers – as well as improve the quality of the agricultural labor force, and provide sufficient impetus for the continued promotion of China's modern agricultural development and rural revitalization.