As a key national strategy to address imbalanced urban-rural development and accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas, the Rural Revitalization Strategy has been comprehensively implemented in China. This strategy encompasses multiple dimensions, including industrial development, talent cultivation, cultural prosperity, ecological sustainability, and organizational strengthening. Among these, talent revitalization serves as a fundamental and crucial project, providing the essential human capital and intellectual support for implementing the rural revitalization strategy. However, for a long time, rural areas have faced severe challenges such as talent outflow, structural imbalance, and low overall quality, which have restricted the process of agricultural and rural modernization. The advent of the digital era provides a historic opportunity to address this dilemma. Digital technologies represented by big data, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things, with their characteristics of permeability, inclusiveness, and synergy, are profoundly reshaping the entire chain of “attracting, cultivating, retaining, and utilizing” rural talents. However, issues such as uneven coverage of digital infrastructure in rural areas, low overall digital literacy among residents, insufficient supply of composite digital talents, and the absence of policy coordination mechanisms have severely constrained the full release of digital dividends. Based on this, this study attempts to clarify the inherent logic of digital empowerment for rural talent revitalization and proposes a multi-level and operable practical path to address the current dilemmas, aiming to provide theoretical reference and practical guidance for comprehensively promoting rural revitalization (
The inherent logic of digital empowerment for rural talent revitalization is rooted in the systematic reshaping of traditional rural talent development paradigms by digital technology, which is specifically manifested in three core mechanisms.
Digital technology, through its inherent attributes of connectivity and sharing, effectively breaks down the information barriers between urban and rural areas. The popularization of high-speed Internet and smart terminals enables rural talents to access knowledge, technology, market information, and policy information without discrimination, achieving unprecedented “knowledge accessibility”. The widespread application of online education platforms and remote collaboration tools enables high-quality educational resources and high-end employment opportunities to be directly delivered to rural areas, bypassing geographical barriers. This provides talents with low-cost, high-efficiency channels for lifelong learning and decent work, fundamentally weakening the constraints of geographical factors on personal development.
Digital technology not only provides access to information but also empowers individuals through innovative training models, accelerating the appreciation of human capital. Leveraging digital tools such as virtual simulation, live streaming teaching, and mobile learning, traditional agricultural technology promotion and vocational training have overcome spatial and temporal constraints, achieving scalability and personalization. This not only rapidly enhances the professional skills of rural talents in areas like agricultural production, e-commerce operations, and digital marketing, but also crucially cultivates the digital literacy and innovative thinking necessary to adapt to the digital era, thereby facilitating the transformation from “traditional laborers” to “digital new farmers”.
Digital technology has reshaped the ecosystem for rural talent development by fostering new business models and optimizing governance. The emergence of new business models such as rural e-commerce, smart agriculture, and digital cultural tourism has created new professions like agricultural data analysts, rural e-commerce anchors, and smart agricultural machinery operators, broadening the career development space for talents and enhancing the “pull” of rural areas for diversified and high-quality talents (
Despite the vast prospects that digital technology has opened up for the revitalization of rural talent, it still faces multiple practical dilemmas in the actual process of empowerment. These dilemmas are intertwined, forming a structural barrier that restricts the full exertion of its effectiveness.
The dual imbalance between digital infrastructure and access capability represents the “hardware” bottleneck of digital empowerment. On the one hand, despite the continuous improvement in network coverage, high-speed and stable network access capabilities remain weak in many rural areas, especially remote mountainous regions. The “last mile” problem has not been fully resolved, which restricts the implementation of advanced applications such as big data and cloud computing. On the other hand, the more profound issue is the “digital divide”. It has evolved from a mere “access divide” to a “skills divide” and a “usage divide”. The elderly and low-education groups in rural areas face significant difficulties in operating smart devices, identifying information, and protecting network security, which leads to their exclusion from the digital dividend and hinders their effective participation in the process of digital empowerment.
The inadequate digital literacy of rural talents and the structural shortage of compound talents are the “software” shortcomings of digital empowerment. The overall digital literacy of rural residents is relatively low, and there is a widespread phenomenon of “not daring to use, not knowing how to use, and not being able to afford”. This makes it difficult for digital tools to integrate into daily production and life, greatly reducing their application efficiency. More importantly, rural areas are extremely short of compound talents who are both familiar with local industries and proficient in digital technology. The existing education system and training content are often disconnected from the actual needs of rural areas, resulting in trained talents unable to meet the job requirements of emerging fields such as smart agriculture, rural e-commerce data analysis, and rural digital governance, forming a structural contradiction of “talents cannot find jobs, and jobs cannot find talents”.
The lack of coordination among multiple stakeholders and the absence of systematic support constitute obstacles in the “system” of digital empowerment. Effective digital empowerment requires a joint effort from the government, market, society, and rural communities. However, the phenomenon of “data silos” is prevalent, with data barriers standing between various departments, hindering the sharing of talent information and business collaboration (
The weakness of the industrial ecosystem and the absence of a long-term incentive mechanism are core challenges that determine the sustainability of empowerment effectiveness. The digital industrial ecosystem in many rural areas is still in its infancy, with short industrial chains and small market scales, making it difficult to provide competitive salaries and clear career development paths, leading to “difficulty in attracting and retaining talent” (
It is crucial to recognize that these four dilemmas are not isolated but are deeply interconnected and mutually reinforcing. The Fundamental Dilemmas create the initial barrier: without robust infrastructure and universal access capabilities, efforts to improve digital literacy are inherently constrained. Conversely, low digital literacy reduces the effective demand and utilization of existing infrastructure, weakening the economic case for further investment. The Coordination Dilemma exacerbates both fragmented governance and a top-down approach, leading to misaligned training programs that fail to address the actual skill gaps or the needs of a nascent industrial ecosystem. Ultimately, the Sustainability Dilemma is the culmination of the first three: a weak talent pool and uncoordinated support systems prevent the growth of a vibrant digital economy, which in turn fails to create the attractive opportunities needed to break the cycle of talent outflow and sustain empowerment efforts. Viewing these dilemmas as a synergistic system is essential for developing holistic solutions.
To address the interconnected dilemmas outlined above, this paper proposes a systematic “Four-in-One” practical path. This framework integrates four critical and synergistic components: strengthening the digital foundation, optimizing the talent cultivation system, promoting the integration of digital industries and talents, and improving policy support and security systems.
We should continue to increase investment to promote the extension of new infrastructure, such as 5G and gigabit optical networks, to remote rural areas, and focus on solving the problem of network coverage in remote areas (
Firstly, we should integrate online and offline educational resources, build a digital education platform at the county level, gather high-quality courses, and promote the integrated model of “online theoretical teaching + offline practical guidance” (
Actively cultivate new forms of rural digital industries, such as smart agriculture, rural e-commerce, and digital cultural tourism, to attract talents driven by industry needs (
The government needs to strengthen top-level design and formulate incentive policies that encompass financial subsidies, tax incentives, and entrepreneurial support. More importantly, it is necessary to break down departmental barriers and establish a diversified and collaborative governance mechanism involving “government-business-university-society”, ensuring precise and targeted allocation of policy resources and providing sustainable institutional support for digital empowerment. While designing supportive policies, it is crucial to consider potential negative externalities. For instance, policies promoting rural gig economy platforms (e.g., for agricultural service provision) should be coupled with regulations that ensure data privacy for farmers and address the precarity of gig work by establishing basic labor protections and social security linkages. This ensures that digital empowerment does not come at the cost of increased vulnerability.
The comprehensive revitalization of rural areas is a systematic project that requires the collaborative participation of diverse forces. We must adopt a co-construction mindset to establish a co-construction mechanism featuring “policy guidance, market leadership, and social participation”. By harnessing digital power to break down urban-rural barriers and connect diverse entities, we can form a pattern of “everyone participating and everyone sharing” for co-construction and common prosperity, thereby injecting more new momentum into the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas. It is important to acknowledge that the digital empowerment process is not without risks, including the potential for widening inequality between the digitally literate and non-literate, data privacy concerns, and the instability of some digital platform work. Currently, practical achievements and difficulties coexist. In the future, to promote digital empowerment, we must adhere to systematic thinking and construct and collaboratively advance a four-in-one practical path of “infrastructure—digital literacy—industrial ecology—policy guarantee”, while remaining vigilant and proactive in mitigating associated risks.
Anhui Province Higher Education Science Research Project (Humanities and Social Sciences) “Research on the Path of Talent Cultivation in Higher Vocational Education to Support Rural Revitalization” (Project No. 2024AH052690); Anhui Province Higher Education Science Research Project (Humanities and Social Sciences) “Research on the Impact Mechanism of Digital Human Resource Management on the Performance of Generation Z Employees Based on the Mediating Effect of Bi directional Work Experience” (Project No. 2024AH052680).