Digitalization of Agrosphere and Changing Nature of Agricultural Labor: Features of Staff Training for Small Agricultural Enterprises

The digital transformation of all Russian economic sectors significantly affected the agricultural sector, where the main state task being solved is the provision of the country’s population with food, the demand for which is growing every year. The process of innovative technologies’ introduction is accompanied by not just the replacement of machinery, technologies, and equipment; it requires an improvement in the quality of one of the main production factors – human labor, which in agriculture traditionally was considered hard, monotonous, and even dangerous, creating conditions for increased injuries. The article considers fundamentally new approaches and requirements for staffing the agricultural sector in the context of digitalization. The task of updating the knowledge base, competencies, and skills of future specialists in digital agroeconomics is assigned to agricultural universities of the country, which were not fully adapted to new conditions. The impact of digitalization on the content and nature of agricultural labor is analyzed; elements of negative, mixed, and positive impact are emphasized. The problem of staffing agricultural enterprises is complicated by the weak motivation of graduates of agricultural universities to stay to work in the countryside, especially on farms. The article analyzes methods of students’ training and improvement of the skills of existing personnel and professional development of employees using the example of improved training approaches at the Volgograd State Agrarian University by creating a regional competence center in the field of digital agriculture and a training and experimental site and a demonstration site for the introduction of digital technologies in agricultural production, practical and laboratory classes, and educational practices. The article highlights the characteristics of training graduates for small agricultural businesses focused on producing high-quality, environmentally friendly food products. Authors’ contribution. L.V. Popova – scientific supervision, development of the concept and sociological research tools, generalization of results of the empirical research, formulation of conclusions, general scientific editing of the text of the article; M.S. Lata – study of the processes of transformation of the nature of labor in the agricultural sector, selection of empirical data, analysis and interpretation of the results of the empirical research; P.A. Melikhov – selection and analysis of literature on the research topic, processing of materials, and preparation of graphs.