Some thoughts on the agricultural engineering discipline construction and talent cultivation in China

Abstract: Agriculture is the critical industry that supports the national economy and people's livelihood. The shortage of labor resources, high-quality consumer demand, strict ecological environment requirements and increasingly intensified international competition have prompted the rapid development of China's agriculture towards the direction of mechanization, information, refinement, intelligence and unmanned operations. Agricultural engineering plays a vital role in agricultural modernization and rural revitalization. Universities are faced with new challenges from technological development, new requirements from social development, and new changes in the demand for talents. In the future, education will be more open, appropriate, human-oriented, equal and sustainable. This article reviewed the unprecedented challenges and opportunities faced by agricultural engineering education, and the unprecedented development of technologies, which had expanded the new territory for the development of agricultural engineering education. The vigorous development of new forms of agriculture provides opportunities for agricultural engineering talents. Agricultural engineering industry is facing new challenges from multiple competitions and the need of the construction of new agricultural and engineering disciplines. Agricultural engineering education faces unprecedented challenges and opportunities. It is urgent for us to think about how to cultivate highly intelligent future innovators, leaders and supporters in agriculture; think about how to focus on the discipline of agricultural engineering, stick to the main responsibility, and form sustainable development. According to the analysis of international agricultural engineering discipline development, this paper found that the cultivation of international agricultural engineering talents had highlighted the intersection of agriculture, engineering, biology and information. The original curriculum system had been completely transformed and expanded, which greatly enhanced professional adaptability and competitiveness. Moreover, the core curriculum system had been the label of the irreplaceability of professional students. For example, among the 86 undergraduate programs majored in agricultural engineering in the United States, biochemistry courses with an opening rate of more than 20% included General Chemistry I (100%), Biology I (71%), and Organic Chemistry (55%), General Chemistry II (53%), Biological Materials Science (51%), Microbiology (35%), General Biology II (30%), Biochemistry (23%), and Bioreactor (Kinetics) (23%). Professional reforms had enabled the undergraduate education of agricultural engineering disciplines in the United States to achieve leapfrog development. The outstanding contributions of agricultural engineering disciplines to economic and social development were recognized by the whole society, and agricultural engineers had become an important and unique category of professional engineers. Given these successful experiences, the authors believed that strengthening the irreplaceability of the students majored in agricultural engineering was the key to strengthening and promoting the reputation of our discipline. The authors recommend four changes: from focusing on knowledge-based teaching to improving comprehensive literacy, from professional education to combined professional and general education, from highly specialized training to interdisciplinary cultivation, and from focusing on professional skills to focusing on overall development, aiming for the development of new agricultural engineering.