Comparative Study Of Agricultural Engineering Discipline In China And Some Developed Countries

Agricultural engineering is a synthetic discipline that integrates the theory and method of modern engineering technology to improve and maintain the production and processing of agricultural goods, rural life, and also to protect the natural environment and preserve the natural resources. Agricultural engineering technology is playing an important role in the development of agricultural mechanization and modernization in China. Since 2005, the field of agricultural engineering among developed nations, including North American and European, has now evolved into the biosystems engineering, which is a science-based engineering discipline that integrates engineering science and design with applied biological, environmental and agricultural sciences. It significantly broadens the area of traditional agricultural engineering, including not only the agricultural sciences, but also the biological science. The experience in North America and European will be benefit to promote the development of subject in Chinese.This research analyzes the development characterics of agricultural engineering discipline in two dimensions (both vertically and horizontally) in China and foreign countries, explores the development pattern, maps the discipline knowledge structure, constructs the innovation framework of Chinese agricultural engineering discipline, team construction and talents training. In this paper, the main contents and conclusions are as follows:(1) This paper systematically analysizes the creation, development and progress of agricultural engineering disciplines at home and abroad by the theory of cumulative and revolution paradigm. This study showes that the disciplines at home and abroad followed the same law of development, and the development of the disciplines advances periodically, thus it is a process from quantitative changes to qualitative changes.(2) After analysizing and comparing the beginning time, formation conditions, driving forces and development paths of the disciplines at home and abroad by the theory of the endogenous and exogenous, this study indicates that the development of agricultural engineering in Europe and America belongs to endogenous pattern which developed early while that of China belongs to innovation-type which developed relatively late.(3) This study compares the structures and development of the disciplines at home and abroad from the perspective of scientific research by the methods of scientometrics and the technologies of visualization and knowledge-domain mapping. The study shows that the different structures of the disciplines resultes in their different emphases. Attention on disciplines such as dynamics and mechanics has declined in some traditional fields. What is more, domestic emerging new research themes such as intelligent agriculture are of some shortages comparing with that of the developed countries, although China’s steps of pursuiting the international academic frontiers go fast. Further, we still need priority breakthrough on original innovation, though China’s motivation to innovate on such disciplines is strengthening.(4) Through the analysis and comparision on models of personnel training and the development of curriculum system using the methods of literature research and empirical analysis, we observed that the organic integration of liberal education and specialized education is an inevitable tendency. Agricultural engineering discipline in China should create multiple education patterns based on the demands of different regions. It is known that the liberal education abroad pays more attention on knowledge and the diversity of curriculum contents while that of China emphasizes on education of ideological and political theory. As a result, it is important for China to promote the curriculum reforms on liberal education actively on the basis of reinforcing the basic teaching theory and emphasizing both the liberal arts and science.(5) This study on the new reforming tendency of higher education in engineering at home and abroad and on the development environment for the innovation of the agricultural engineering discipline shows that the guiding ideology of "Outstanding Engineer Training Plans" in China lies in the high consistence of the CDIO engineering education mode in Europe and America, and both of them provide directions for innovation of the agricultural engineering. Thus, the innovation of agricultural engineering should improve the training of students’ engineering consciousness, engineering quality and engineering practical ability while complying with the requirements of society, taking practical project for background and focusing on engineering technologies. Moreover, it is necessary for the discipline to innovate new talents training modes through deepening the cooperation of universities and corporations.