Research On The Willingness And Influencing Factors Of Non-agricultural College Students To Engage In New Professional Farmers

With the accelerated urbanization and industrialization in China in recent years,young and strong rural labourers have started to flock to the cities on a large scale.The problems of “lack of successors” in agriculture and “who will grow the land” have aroused the concern of the whole society.In 2012,Central Document No.1 pointed out for the first time that efforts should be made to cultivate new professional farmers.Compared to farmers in the traditional sense,new professional farmers also need to have higher ideological,cultural and political qualities,as well as an ideology and innovative spirit that is in step with modern times,while university students who have received higher education have the special advantage of becoming new professional farmers.From the perspective of professional counterpart,agricultural students represented by traditional agronomy majors have certain advantages in engaging in agriculture by virtue of their professional skills,and are better matched with new professional farmers.However,in terms of the concept and types of new professional farmers,their talent structure should be more diverse.Therefore,encouraging and guiding non-agricultural university students to enter the ranks of new professional farmers is not only a corrective to the low quality of agricultural practitioners,but also a major step to ensure the succession of agriculture.This paper is mainly guided by the Theory of Planned Behaviour,Maslow’s Hierarchical Theory of Needs and Schultz’s Human Capital Theory,and uses a questionnaire to investigate the willingness of 339 non-agricultural college students in Hubei Province to engage in new professional farmers and their influencing factors.Based on the excellent research findings of previous authors,four independent variables(subjective norms,policy factors,degree of awareness of new professional farmers,satisfaction with personal needs),one mediator(attitude towards agriculture)and one dependent variable(willingness of non-agricultural college students to join new professional farmers)were selected,and nine research hypotheses were put forward.Using SPSS19.0 and Amos23.0 software to quantitatively analyse the data and construct structural equation modeling,the willingness of non-agricultural college students to engage in new professional farmers and the factors influencing them are studied in depth.The results of the study show that:the overall willingness of non-agricultural college students to engage in new professional farmers is low;non-agricultural college students’ attitudes towards agriculture,subjective norms,and satisfaction with national policies will have a significant positive impact on their willingness to engage in new professional farmers,and non-agricultural college students’ subjective norms,satisfaction with national policies,and knowledge of new professional farmers will have a significant positive impact on their attitudes towards agriculture;In addition,the effect of subjective norms on the willingness of non-agricultural university students to engage in new professional farmers is partially mediated,while there is no mediating effect of policy factors.Based on the research results,specific countermeasures and suggestions to improve the willingness of non-agricultural college students to engage in new professional farmers are proposed from four perspectives: the government should find the right positioning and increase policy support;the society should take the right direction and create a good public opinion environment;the colleges should play their role well and strengthen education and employment guidance;and individuals should change their concepts and establish a correct view of career selection.