Youth and agriculture: What’s new? Over the past years, many of us – individuals and organisations, have been advocating for the active engagement of African youth in agriculture. Indeed, with an ageing farming population and the high unemployment rate among youth, agriculture, being the main economic sector of most countries in... More

The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) is organising a Regional Workshop on “Engaging Youth in the Implementation Phase of the CAADP Transformation Agenda – KIS” on 9-10 May 2013 at FARA Headquarters in Accra, Ghana.  The meeting will look at the entire CAADP country and regional policy processes, and identify innovative approaches for making job creation for young people a... More

For the past year, one of the Web 2.0 tools I am using a lot for information search and dissemination is Twitter. There are of course other tools to collaborate, access information and to connect with people/organisations that have same interests as me (See one of my previous posts on Web 2.0 tools: Some practical examples), but presently I find Twitter... More

Youth at FANRPAN Regional Dialogue (2011) Photo Courtesy: FANRPAN The Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), in collaboration with the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) commissioned 6 Country Case Studies (Malawi, Mauritius, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zimbabwe) in November 2011 on current and emerging youth policies and initiatives with a special focus on links... More

              The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) in collaboration with the Faculty of Agriculture (University of Mauritius) and the Food and Agricultural Research Council (FARC) organised a workshop on Web 2.0 Learning Opportunity in Mauritius from 9-13 July 2012 at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Mauritius, Reduit. I was invited... More

Yesterday evening, I opened my Facebook page and could not miss the status updates of my friends of the Faculty of Agriculture who passed their final year exams and are going to graduate soon... Status updates on Facebook My first reaction was happiness for them, since I still remember being in the same situation last year, and the feeling of completing... More

The 4th Agriculture and Rural Development Day (ARDD) was held on 18th June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The ARDD took place in parallel with the United Nation's Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio+20. More than 500 participants attended the event comprising of high level policy makers, scientists, negociators, journalists, farmer organizations, civil societies and other stakeholders in... More

On the occasion of the 3rd IAALD Africa Chapter conference, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) organised a series of activities in the framework of the ARDYIS project. These included the prize giving ceremony of the YoBloCo Awards and a consultative workshop under the theme "Using ICTs to strengthen youth opportunities in agriculture and rural areas".  Winners and some best participants... More

  In the context of the upcoming United Nation's Conference on Sustainable Development (also known as Rio+20), people over the world are sharing their thoughts and opinions on how they see their future, so that their voice is heard at the conference from 20-22 June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This is being done through various methods: essay contests, blogs,... More

A group of young graduates in Kenya have introduced a mobile-phone enabled technology which will help farmers in rural Africa to link up with crop researchers, meteorological departments and veterinary scientists to better their farm yields. Calvins Okello, a science graduate from the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) and a colleague, Gordon Owiti, have developed the new technology... More

Hunger v/s Food wastage Every day, we hear in the news that people in different parts of the world are suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Nearly one billion people in the world go  to sleep hungry each night since they do not have anything to feed themselves due to several reasons (economic & food crisis, increase in food prices, over-exploitation of the... More