’’It finally came true’’, these were the words I said to myself as the activities of the day ended. Over the past months myself and another YPARD member in Kogi State Nigeria:  Apeh Omede who happens to also be a staff at  Kogi State University in the Department of Animal Production, had planned a YPARD Awareness with the support of YPARD... More

Le Burkina Faso est un pays très majoritairement agricole. Le secteur primaire, constitué par l'agriculture et l'élevage emploie presque toute la population rurale et une partie importante de la population urbaine. Entre 80 et 85% des Burkinabè travaillent dans le secteur primaire. Mais le faible rendement agricole, les méthodes archaïques et les aléas climatiques rendent cette partie de la population pauvre... More

I was invited to contribute through a guest commentary for the Chicago Council’s Global Food for Thought Blog on the importance of engaging/investing in youth in agriculture sector to alleviate hunger and poverty, given my experiences with YPARD.  The Global Food for Thought blog indeed provides a platform for expert commentary on international agriculture and food issues. This year, the Council... More

Farmland area in Iran is 11-13 million ha in which most of it can be classified as traditional farming systems which smallholder farmers are involved in for subsistence agriculture. Since many farmers in their small farms and gardens never use agrochemicals and use sustainable approaches for crop production during land preparation, crop nutrition, soil fertility as well as pest, disease and... More

This article by Olawale Ojo, Nigeria, was published on CTA's ICT Update magazine of February 2013 (n.70) (download the full magazine) Olawale Isaiah Ojo uses the social media to inform the youth about agricultural entrepreneurship. Followers have asked questions, made enquiries on how to start up agribusinesses, where and how they can gather the needed training for themselves to specialize in... More

Travel report from the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) 2013by Martina Graf, Coordinator YPARD Europe Berlin, minus 12 Celsius degree outside, when I dive into the crowd of ministers, students, NGO representatives, groups of delegates, investors, ambassadors from governments and lobbyists. They come together in the frame of “Die Grüne Woche”, which is the world's biggest fair for food,... More

I remember that moment I read Tega’s letter of motivation for YPARD Social Media’s internship position. It smelled creativity, dynamism, smartness and ambition. Tega finished his internship as the New Year 2013 was starting. He contributed to a significant increase of membership on YPARD Pages on social media: Facebook ( page and groupe), Twitter and Linkedin. Tega brought a number of... More

Ado Woldu (Aderajew) is our new YPARD Ethiopia National Representative. Aderajew Woldu is a graduate in Rural Development (B.Sc) from Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia, since 2008. He was employed that same year at Haramaya University as a graduate assistant in the department of Rural Development & Agricultural Extension (RDAE) and carried on as an assistant lecturer, till the end of 2010.... More

Sridhar Gutam is our new YPARD India National Representative. Sridhar Gutam after earning a Ph.D. (Plant Physiology) from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, had joined Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) in 2004. He is currently working as a Senior Scientist (Plant Physiology) at Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture (CISH), Lucknow. His... More

Frejus THOTO is our new YPARD Benin National Representative. Frejus Thoto is 22 years old and is about to complete his MSc in Agricultural economics. He got the Certificate of “Science and Policy of Climate Change” from TERI and the World Bank. Frejus is a young expert in climate change adaptation and managed several projects with organization like UNEP, UNDP, IDRC,... More

“Iwe kiko lai si oko ati ada ko i pe o ko i pe o, ise agbe ni ise ile wa eni kosise ama jale” “Formal education without cutlass and hoe is not complete because farming is our country’s major trademark, and he that does not work, will steal”. I was taught this nursery rhyme while in the elementary school. The... More

I never gave so much attention to the cocoa industry during all my studies of opportunities for youth in agribusiness. Majorly, I was reluctant because i just had this uneasy feeling about the waiting period of 3 to 5 years before making profit and the fact that it requires some reasonable amount of volume in terms of quantity and quality. In... 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

Young people are the backbone of national economy and are the strengths of tomorrow. Every nation must think about best possible education and, thereby job opportunities to the young people so that they will have appropriate skills when time comes for their contributions to the nation. This is very lacking part in most of the developing and under-developed countries, at least... More

“A good educational system should have three purposes: it should provide all who want to learn with access to available resources at any time in their lives; empower all who want to share what they know and to find those who want to learn it from them; and, furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the... More

As we step into the year 2013, a lot of indications of earlier activities of the last quarter of 2012 show that serious attention would be drawn to agriculture, with a business unusual dimension for the sector. What this means is that agriculture would no longer be seen as mere farming- a laborious venture with lot of waiting period for benefits... More

The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Global Youth Forum was held in Bali, Indonesia, from 4th -6th  December 2012 in the context of the reviewing and following up to the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action beyond 2014 and development agenda beyond 2015. The aim was to produce recommended actions for the outcome report of the review and... More

Youth are messenger of excellent source of ideas and innovation. Investing in young people on improved access to training, capacity development and facilitating to use of appropriate technology will have the best effect to attract more youth in agriculture. On these days, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been key tools for knowledge sharing and networking in development of agriculture globally.... More

COP18, the 18th edition of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was taking place from November 26 to December 7, 2012 in Doha, Qatar. Two events were particularly related to agriculture: “Forest day” and “Agriculture, Landscapes and Livelihoods Day”, December 2 and 3, 2012. Agriculture needed to have its space at... More

Among the many highlights of my participation at the Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2)  with the theme FORESIGHT AND PARTNERSHIP FOR INNOVATION AND IMPACT ON SMALL-HOLDER LIVELIHOODS at Punta del Este, Uruguay on 29th October to November 1, 2012, one experience that I would not forget very quickly was the visit to the Solari Family Farm in... More