Professor Xu Hao, a Chinese People's Political Consultative
Conference (CPPCC)
member from Hebei Agricultural University, is worried about the
younger generation of agronomists: they can plow through research
materials to write papers, but they don't know the first thing
about using a plow.
Xu spends much of his time traipsing through the fields. The
farmers he meets complain about the younger scientists: "They speak
foreign languages better than they do Chinese, and they know how to
increase grain production but don't know what to do in the field."
Xu said that it is essential to communicate with farmers using
their language when discussing agronomy.
According to Xu, the inability to communicate is indicative of a
larger problem. Today's young scientists and technicians spend all
their time growing crops on computers, and are becoming
increasingly distanced from the practical issues of farming.
Xu cited as a model the example of Yuan Longping, China's famous
"Father of Hybrid Rice." Yuan, now 75
years old, still goes out to the fields twice a day all year round.
He requires his students to work in the fields every day as
well.
Most younger agronomists hire workers to do the menial labor
necessary for their experiments. But, said Xu, the workers care
little about the precision required to conduct a valid scientific
experiment and may cut many corners in order to save themselves
trouble. A scientist unfamiliar with farm labor has no clue that he
is being played by the workers he hired and in the end, the data
contained in his paper have no reliability.
"It's mainly the present management system for agronomists that
is to blame," declared Xu.
Performance appraisals are based on papers filled with theory
rather than warehouses filled with grain. The problem is similar to
that of government officials, who may be rated solely on GDP growth
without consideration for environment or social development.
To make matters worse, research funding cannot support long-term
experiments in the field. A researcher who tries to conduct such an
experiment will probably run out of money after completing a single
segment, said Xu.
(China.org.cn by Wind Gu, March 13, 2005)