The Liaoning authorities of the Chinese Communist Party plan to evaluate job titles for farmers: proposing to establish four levels including junior, intermediate, associate senior, and senior. This move has sparked mockery from netizens.
On December 23, Xinhua News Agency reported that Liaoning Province released the “New Occupational Farmer Title Evaluation Measures” (trial) (draft for comments), proposing to conduct “new occupational farmer title evaluation work.”
The draft for comments indicates that the so-called new occupational farmer titles are set as junior, intermediate, associate senior, and senior levels. The junior titles are divided into staff and assistant levels. The corresponding title names for each level are: agricultural technician, assistant agronomist, agronomist, senior agronomist, and senior agronomist (new occupational farmer). The professional evaluation includes disciplines such as agronomy, horticulture, plant protection, aquaculture, animal husbandry, veterinary medicine, agricultural resources and environment, and agricultural mechanization.
It is said that farmers who obtain the title of “new occupational farmer” can enjoy some benefits, such as priority hiring in rural grassroots service organizations when recruiting relevant personnel in villages under equal conditions; priority access to new technology training, and priority participation in the experimental demonstration of new varieties, products, and models.
The measures state that they will be implemented starting from January 1, 2026.
Chinese media claims that this is a way to officially recognize “soil experts,” but mainland netizens have been joking about it, saying, “Pandering to the masses,” “The Job Title Evaluation Committee will be set up immediately…,” “Assessing job titles is very complicated, should they pay a processing fee?”
Some mainland netizens commented, “I wonder: after these titled farmers retire, Liaoning will surely provide them with the same amount of pension as retired civil servants, for example, when a senior agronomist, aged 60 or 65, can receive a monthly pension of one or two thousand Chinese yuan… otherwise, what is the point of giving farmers job titles?”
This issue has also sparked discussions on X platform overseas: “I guess farmers applying for titles don’t need to publish papers, but they need to undergo annual review fees.” “Can I be a senior national-level farmer? Oh, it seems like the one from Dazhai is a deputy national-level.” “Will senior agronomists be criticized in the future?” “Does it mean these four levels represent: manpower, livestock, vegetables, and consumables?” “Another avenue for seeking rent.”
China has long implemented a household registration system, dividing citizens into farmers and urban residents based on their status, with farmers only bearing obligations but lacking various social security rights as should be entitled to all citizens, such as medical care, pensions, etc. Hundreds of millions of farmers have no social security for retirement.
Chinese issues expert Wang He stated that under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, China has a dual urban-rural system, and the vast farmer population has not been included in the unemployment rate calculation. This is a problem of the system.
Due to a large number of migrant workers returning home recently, on November 13 this year, the Chinese Communist Party’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs held a meeting in Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, proposing to “prevent the formation of large-scale return to villages” and prevent mass returning to poverty due to unemployment.
Wang He said that the migrant workers currently working outside are mainly relatively young farmers who are almost unable to farm. If they return to the countryside for a long time without farming, they will become wanderers. The Chinese Communist Party’s statement of preventing a return to poverty is just a superficial rhetoric; what it truly worries about is that rural stability has become a major issue. “Because the CCP built its foundation on farmers, it is very fearful.”