Recommendations made at the just ended 'Youth in Agriculture' regional conference | WestMac Media

By Winston Muleba JR 

In the African context, the key to shared prosperity and poverty eradication is to be found through creation and expansion of decent jobs in rural and urban areas. Studies have shown that agricultural growth in Sub-Saharan Africa has a more positive impact on reducing poverty compared to growth in other sectors, implying that tapping into the reservoir of employment opportunities in agriculture is indispensable for poverty reduction. 

The Government of Rwanda, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the African Union in partnership with other organizations organized a regional conference on the theme: Youth in Agriculture as a Solid Solution to ending Hunger and Poverty in Africa: Engaging through Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Entrepreneurship. 

The conference took place in Kigali, Rwanda on 20-21 August, 2018. 

The conference aimed at fostering an exchange among stakeholders (policy makers, development partners, the private sector, youth and women organizations, civil society organizations, research and academia) on knowledge and best practices regarding the interfaces between agriculture, youth employment, entrepreneurship, ICT innovations in agriculture and rural development, leading to prioritizing interventions going forward. 

The conference featured a high-level interactive panel involving policy makers, youth leaders, business and Innovation leaders, as well as key partners. 

Specifically, stakeholders discussed the relative importance of known drivers of youth-centered entrepreneurship and innovations in agriculture and agribusiness along the following major themes: 

Youth and entrepreneurship: focused on solutions that offer new opportunities for youth entrepreneurship, including on-farm and beyond, along the agricultural value chains. This theme looked at policy, financial and leading examples of incentives to foster youth-led or youth-focused business services. 

Digital solutions to overcome agriculture value-chain related constraints: focused on technological solutions that support youth-related innovation and modern production technologies in agriculture; solutions to foster youth-led or youth-focused networking. 

Future of Agriculture Work: The conference culminated with a dialogue on a framework and roadmap that would transform "agriculture Work for youth in Africa". As it is believed, this lays a broad framework and course of action towards steering the course of future interventions. 

Meanwhile, a delegate from Zambia who is also Director of Billionaire Farmer Agric Solutions Limited, Dr Tamara Kaunda says she was humbled to represent Zambia at such a conference. 

“I was humbled to represent Young Zambian farmers at the just ended conference on Youth in Agriculture in Kigali Rwanda organized by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),” she says. 

She says young farmers in Africa who attended the conference made recommendations to UN-FAO and it's partners. 

Dr Kaunda explains that the recommendations made called on respective ministries responsible for agriculture to support youths farmers and facilitate the follow-up and implementation of the Post-Kigali Roadmap at country levels. 

She adds that delegates also requested that the next conference should begin with follow up and updates from previous commitments made in order to promote growth. 

Dr Kaunda further explains that delegates challenged UN-FAO as esteemed leaders of development to support their vision by providing them with the education and training that would enable them to compete and remain relevant in a rapidly changing agricultural sector. 

“We also called on our Governments and partners to continue providing the enabling policy and institutional environments for inclusive integration of the youth into agriculture value chains. Policies should have a quota system to promote youth beneficiation. 

“We called on AUC and partners to support the existing organized family farms, cooperatives, and equip rural areas with key services (such as digital finance solutions, and risk- sharing instruments) and infrastructure in order to attract the youth, low capital which is holistic and time friendly). 

“We also call on other partners such as UNIDO to engage and support the youth in agribusiness Incubation, value addition and access to markets. 

“We further called on all development partners to change the image of agriculture on marketing platforms and sell agriculture as attractive to the youth,” she explains. 

She also mentions that delegates unanimously agreed to establish a discussion group to coordinate the best practices at International, national and local levels. 

About the Author: 

Winston Muleba Junior is a Researcher, Citizen Journalist, Blogger, Scientist, Writer and Disaster Management Practitioner who uses media and ICT to promote science, technology and innovation. He gravitates towards environment: water, aquaculture, land, climate change and agriculture as he is skilled at juxtaposing the latest research and expert opinion with the everyday lives and struggles of people on the ground. Email: mwenyamuleba@gmail.com