On March 20, 2018, Li Xiande (the Chief Scientist of the Foreign Agricultural Economy and Policy” Innovation Team) invited Yu Xiaohua (the Professor of Germany Göttingen University) to give an academic report at the institute. The report theme is “Difficulties and Hot Spots for Rural Revitalization: Based on Historical and International Comparisons."

Researcher Li Xiande chaired the academic report. Professor Yu Xiaohua introduced general goals and requirements of the rural revitalization, such as “prosperous industries, livable ecology, civilized rural custom, effective governance, and affluent life”, as well as strong agriculture, beautiful countryside and rich farmers. Starting from the focus of traditional policy, combined with the current challenges faced by China’s agriculture, Li Xiande believed that the rural revitalization was a great change of policy thinking. Then, combining with characteristics of agriculture, Li Xiande put forward difficulties of rural revitalization in terms of people, finance, land and organization. From the perspective of demography and history, Researcher Li Xiande proposed the core of rural revitalization. Finally, Li Xiande introduced experience of Japan and Germany on rural revitalization.

After the academic report, participating researchers and postgraduates had in-depth exchanges and discussions with Professor Yu Xiaohua on how to retain people in rural revitalization, how to view the rights of rural collective land and how to effectively learn from foreign experience on rural revitalization.

Yu Xiaohua is currently the professor of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at the University of Göttingen in Germany. He is also the deputy editor-in-chief of the International Agricultural Economics Association’s journal Agricultural Economics. He has published a large number of articles on the American Journal of Agricultural Economics and Food Policy and other mainstream English academic journals of agricultural economy. He mainly engages in research of agricultural economy, environmental economy and applied economy.