6 months ago, Sabina and Nawsheen were taking the challenge to start a remote internship of around 10 hours a week with YPARD. Sabina, Tri-lingual Star! Sabina was working on translations of key documents, communications products and articles in English, French and Spanish. She benefitted of the supervision of French and Spanish mother language speakers able to reflect the texts within... Continue reading

On the 8th – 9th of October, The European Forum on Agricultural Research for Development (EFARD) Steering Committee (SC) Meeting took place at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, School for Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences (HAFL). As the European Coordination of YPARD is hosted by HAFL, I’ve got the chance to participate the meeting as a substitute of Codrin Paveliuc-Olariu.... Continue reading

The GCARD2 communication team shared with us few numbers about GCARD2 coverage. "Giving space and voice to participants who did not travel to Uruguay; advocating the importance of agriculture in achieving a food secure future; and building capacities of young professionals, the leaders of tomorrow, to have a voice in shaping the world they will live in, were the three objectives... Continue reading

It all started off as a challenge for a young group of social media enthusiasts that wanted to give a voice to young professionals in agricultural research for development (ARD) at the Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD 2012). From all walks of life, young spirited people have gathered between October 25th and November 2nd 2012 in Punta... Continue reading

The Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD 2012) brought together all groups of stakeholders: from researchers to donors such as the FAO, EC or IFAD, to farmers organizations or the private sector. The surprise at the conference co-organized by GFAR and the CGIAR Consortium was the recognition of the role that young professionals play in AR4D. For the... Continue reading

Setting the scene Between 16 and 20 Young people present flesh&bones at GCARD2 YPARD pre-event session. Some of them leave shortly to pop-up in other pre-event sessions related to their field of expertise or regional activities. Many of them are also GCARD2 Social reporting trainees. Laptop in hands, they replace the traditional note-taking to tweeting! So, to this bunch of YPs,... Continue reading

“You will be surprised” is the logo written on the t-shirts of the bunch of youngsters at the GCARD2 pre-conference session of YPARD, which stands for Young Professionals’ Platform for Agricultural Research for Development. The leaders of the movement have reason to say so. Since its creation in 2006, YPARD has been acting as a platform for knowledge sharing for young... Continue reading

“Agriculture is an ageing and undervalued profession in many countries and special attention must be given to encouraging young people into careers in all aspects of AR4D...It is important that young people themselves help express what changes are needed in agricultural education and incentives to make careers more attractive and valued and better recognize the range of roles now required in... Continue reading

The state of "Foresight" Foresight (ability to explore/anticipate and plan the future) is considered essential for understanding future agricultural and rural development contexts and changes around the world, and for driving the research and innovation required to meet these needs.  An inventory of forward looking anticipatory works was conducted earlier this year by GFAR, the Global Forum on Agricultural Research. A... Continue reading

It has been a long journey since we started preparing Youth involvement into GCARD2 (the 2nd Global Conference for Agricultural Research for Development). There is still a long way to go : GCARD2 being a huge event and hopefully the starting point of new exciting projects. Here is a small brief on the distance run so far, and the up-coming GCARD2... Continue reading

The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) is - in short - a network of 29 universities in eastern and southern Africa working with other partners, to enhance high education quality and impact in the field of agriculture. YPARD was invited at the 3rd RUFORUM Biennial Conference, last September, 24-28, 2012, in Entebbe, Uganda. The objective of this... Continue reading

The 3rd RUFORUM Biennial Conference was held, last September, 24-28, 2012, in Entebbe, Uganda. The objective of this meeting was to exchange findings and experiences, and indentify lessons learned in order to improve performance of the agricultural sector. Discussions turned around strengthening Science and Technology capacity in Africa, strengthening value chains and innovation platform, and engaging African Youth in Rural Transformation.... Continue reading

The 3rd RUFORUM Biennial Conference was held, last September, 24-28, 2012, in Entebbe, Uganda. The objective of this meeting was to exchange findings and experiences, and indentify lessons learned in order to improve universities performance for agricultural development. Mary Ebukalin was invited to share her experience and insight, as an end-user, on the impact of higher education on agricultural development. Mary... Continue reading

A platform for the youth to emerge as leaders in the direction of green economy, the five-day Asia Pacific Graduates´ Youth Forum on Green Economy successfully concluded on 29 September 2012, in Kathmandu, Nepal, where young graduates from 15 different countries and more than 40 participants were gathered together. This meeting was fruitful to give elicit notion to participation of regional youth... Continue reading

September 2012 welcomed 2 new YPARD country representatives in Europe!  Myriam Perez Dumoulin is our new YPARD France representative !  After a short mission in summer 2011 where she performed an employability assignment commissioned by the AgrisMundus master of sciences Secretariat, she has now returned to Montpellier SupAgro to another exciting project in contact with foreign students of agricultural engineering. Myriam... Continue reading

September 2012 welcomed 2 new YPARD country representatives in Europe!  Johanna Gysin is our new YPARD Switzerland representative !  You bet Johanna is passionate about agriculture and Asia ! Johanna is currently enrolled in a part time master studies at the School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences (HAFL) in Zollikofen, Switzerland, with a major in Management of Value Chains. Her... Continue reading

Last week, five days long session on “Asia Pacific Graduates’ Youth Forum on Green Economy, 25-29 September, 2012” were held where 40 participants from 15 countries with diverse background were gathered together in Kathmandu, capital city of Nepal to emerge as leaders in the direction of green economy. In the third day of session, we got chance to meet with Mr.... Continue reading

Dear YPARDians,  As food prices soar and, according to the World Population Prospects that the UN published in 2010, we will be 9.3 billion souls living on earth by 2050 (10.1 billion by the end of the century), it is time to set out on a journey to find the best solutions in order to ensure GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY.  At this... Continue reading

“The conference "New skills for a European Bioeconomy" hosted by the European Commission in Brussels on 20-21 November 2012 will bring together bioeconomy stakeholders at the European, national and regional level and also those active in the education and training sectors to discuss the role of skills development in driving and facilitating the transition towards a bioeconomy and seizing the employment... Continue reading

Bring out the voice of the youth on several issues related to capacity development in agricultural research for development. Join one of three online groups according to your topic of interest, and share your ideas on youth engagement, from Monday 3 September until 14 September 2012: Agricultural innovation systems -> What are steps towards greater engagement with youth to create stronger... Continue reading