Recently, it is learned from the Agriculture Office of Ningbo Municipal Party Committee that in 2011, the city continued its "quality training for a million farmers" project to cultivate a group of new type of farmers with intellectual, market and business knowledge. Throughout the year, about 118,700 rural laborers accepted various kinds of trainings and received 61,000 training certificates. The training investment from all levels of governments reached 48.66 million yuan. After being trained, about 23800 farmers succeeded in transfer employment, and the employment rate reached 80.67%.
More training contents were added and innovative teaching method was adopted. The "efficient vegetable production technology seminar" carried out group trainings. Placement training was adopted for trainees of different levels in the same major. For example, for the "agritainment chef training course", trainees were divided into different levels for training according to their working years and professional qualification levels. Farmers of planting (breeding) science and technology demonstration households, agricultural technicians and agricultural leaders were trained in groups in different periods. For instance, ordinary cultivating farmers got trained at the local agriculture technology promotion station, while large-scale cultivating farmers, heads of cooperatives and entrepreneurs of leading agricultural enterprises were educated in colleges and universities. In 2011, over 280 distinguished farmers were sent to colleges for training. So far, 2378 excellent farmers have received training. In September last year, 17 senior modern agriculture business owners went to Taiwan for further training.
The industrial structure was optimized and the training became more targeted. Training programs that are closely connected with the development of modern agriculture, such as agritainment, agricultural product brokers and directors of agricultural industry association, were added last year. Such departments as Ningbo Municipal Agriculture Office and Ningbo Supply and Marketing Cooperative jointly held the elementary and intermediate training courses for agricultural product brokers, and 328 brokers got trained. By the end of last year, the recorded rural practical talents reached 96,700 people, accounting for 3.2% of the total rural labor force in Ningbo.
Even after the training, the farmers still maintained close contact with experts. Thus, the distance between farmers and universities was shortened, and the university research can serve the agriculture effectively, so that a virtuous circle of industry, academy and research. According to survey, most of those who participated in the "effective vegetable production technology seminar" are still in close touch with the teachers and experts of Ningbo Institute of Agriculture Sciences.
According to the survey of the institute, over 50 members of the 269 trainees trained in the institute have become leaders or technical experts of cooperatives and companies, and 156 members have become agricultural science and technology demonstration households. For example, after participating in the "efficient vegetable production technology seminar", Shen Guojun of "mountain" vegetable and fruit cooperative in Fenghua County, succeeded in increasing the crop yield by over 30% by applying the new technique of using the biological fermentation of agricultural organic waste as fertilizers.