YPARD Africa at the Agri-business Incubation Conference and Expo-2015

Youth involvement in agriculture in Africa is worryingly dismal with almost 200 million people aged between 15 and 24.These statistics present a serious challenge if this population segment is not productively engaged in food production early enough. The average age of a farmer in Africa is estimated at  55 but the question on who will feed the world when this farmer is old and weak linger in many minds. The scenario represents a ticking, demographic time-bomb.  

There are concerted efforts by different players to transform agriculture and engage youth in agriculture along different value chains. And it is along these lines that the first ever African Agri-business Incubation Conference and expo took place in Kenya from 28th to 30th September iunder the theme catalyzing sustainable transformation of Africa’s Agriculture through agri-business incubation: towards job and wealth creation, food security and poverty reduction.

The Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) was sufficiently represented. The Director-Courtney Paisley, togther with the regional and country representatives were in attendance. They took part in side events and made feature presentations where lessons, experiences, challenges and opportunities in agriculture were shared.During her presentation, the YPARD director reported that, YPARD has grown to be the largest youth in agriculture movement catalyzing sustainable transformation of Africa’s Agriculture in line with the conference’s theme.

Besides that,YPARD participants benefited from learning about challenges facing the agricultural sector through sitting in in other presentations at the conference. The major challenges in agri-business as pertains to the youth involvement as presented by most presentations include; inadequate access to farm inputs (Fertilizer and seeds), poorly developed supportive infrastructure (ICT), lack of access to timely and relevant agricultural information, mismatch in training, limited access to land, inadequate access to financial services and poor mentoring, limited access to markets for their products, lack of involvement in policy dialogue and decision making.

In light of these challenges, the biggest challenge remains as changing attitudes and attracting the youth into agriculture. In trying to unnervesome of the incentives that can be used to attract young people in agricultre and business in general, YPARD- Country Representatives nade a  joint presentation seeking to to answer these questions and gave the following key recommendations/Strategies for boosting youth’s interests and participation in agriculture;

• Sharing of Information and celebrating of success stories/best Practices: the youth need to have their voices heard, access information on agricultural opportunities, share success stories and inspire others.
• Investing in agricultural education at all levels from primary to tertiary levels: Reform of the school curriculum must include agriculture in order to nurture farmers from young age.
• Create more incentives and opportunities across the agricultural value chain for youth especially awards, youth envoy, scholarships, competitions, TV/radio reality Shows, grants, collateral free micro-credit schemes, mentoring, volunteer and agricultural extension services
• Building youth capacity to enable them lobby and pitch for great innovations that will attract incubators and financers.
• Inclusive decision making to ensure youth participation and their influence on policy and decision making processes in Agriculture to promote youth inclusion.
• Supporting start-ups for social media agribusiness platforms, mobile phone and agricultural information systems, including marketing and extension information
• Supporting the creation of youth village level farm associations, especially cooperatives that provide a collective basis for acquiring inputs and higher prices for their marketed products. As a platform for collective financing, these associations, in effect will drive the development of small enterprises.

A lot was discussed at the conference and going forward, the implementation of the resolutions made should remain the focus of all the youth friendly  organizations. By attracting youth in agriculture, we will not only be securing our nutrition security but also contributing to various SDGs: Alleviating poverty, ending hunger, achieving gender equity, healthy lives…….. And the list goes on.