If you were to speak about any trendy agricultural issue in Africa and hope to get any attention by the power that be you would have to locate it within the broader context of African Union’s NEPAD flagship programme known as CAADP and the call by United Nations’ Secretary General in 2004 to effectively turn the 21st Century to be the period of African Green Revolution! In the recent past, various development reports have sought to encourage meaningful engagement of youth across value chains through global, continental, regional and national policy frameworks. One of such reports is FANRPAN 2012 Country Case Studies on Youth and Agricultural Policies. The report present a unique population profile, with 44% of its population under the age 15 in 2006 making sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) the youngest region of the world. Today, two out of three inhabitants of SSA are under 25 years of age. SSA is home to over 200 million young people, who are employed primarily in agriculture, where they account for 65% of the total employment.
On
the other hand, the farmers that these vulnerable youth generation work under
are fast aging without any succession plan to ensure productivity continues at
an improved scale. For example, an average age of a farmer in South Africa
range between 56 – 62 years and average life expectancy is 57.1 years (54.9 for
male and 59.1 for female) (StatsSA,
2011).
According
to the same FANRPAN
report, about 40 percent of the total unemployed are youth in Africa - 70
percent of these live in rural areas. Those who are employed have insecure work
arrangements, characterized by low productivity and meagre earnings. Among the
youth, females and the rural youth face particularly stronger challenges
especially because of early motherhood and lack of educational and job
opportunities.
Youth
face challenges brought about by limited access to resources, healthcare,
education, training, employment and economic opportunities. Many youth remain
marginalized, disconnected or excluded from the opportunities that
globalization offers.
There
is obviously a compelling evidence of ageing farmer population across the
continent which must be addressed to ensure continuity and sustainability in
agriculture production. The age gap is made worse by research
and technological gap that has tended to undermine many efforts to
transform and rebrand the face of Africa’s agricultural knowledge system.
Thus, young Africans are the key to African agriculture development.
However, many are unable to fulfill their potential because of poverty, hunger,
poor health and lack of education.
It
would seem true that for Africa to achieve food security, young people must be
regarded as critical agricultural players who need and deserve special attention,
support and follow-up. By promoting entrepreneurship culture among youth in
agriculture as we should do, it is highly possible that we will, in the
process, assist in improving household food security, creation of employment
opportunities particularly in rural areas, and consequently reduce rural
migration to urban areas.
I
must therefore agree with a view expressed in The
New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa that the ability of
the continent to feed itself will depend largely on the extent to which it is
able to harness the world’s scientific and technological knowledge and put it
to local uses.
The
question we are asking and working towards responding as part of concerned global citizens
regarding food security and future of agriculture is: if we all say the future of all modern society depends on youth,
‘what is it then that you are doing to promote the culture
of entrepreneurship among the agriyouth generation in order to ‘harness the
world’s scientific and technological knowledge and put it to local uses’?
I’m pleased to share that the ICT4Ag13 Conference in Kigali, Rwanda got
the organizer, a multi-regional
agricultural organization committing to a sustained entrepreneurship programme that
will target and benefit youth in developing nations. I’m also humbled to
share that a Comprehensive and Reviewable 3 Year Entrepreneurship Programme
aimed at filling the threatening aging farmer gap, lack of entrepreurship
culture and institutional barriers that impede agricultural productivity is
underway in South Africa. The programme will have a strong emphasis on commercialization
of rural Agricultural Activities, uplifting small-scale farmers and ‘agripreneurs’ into viable business
enterprises for sustainable local economic development. For this to happen,
South Africans industry stakeholders know well that they need to provide access
to reproductive infrastructures such as land, roads, electricity, marketing
facilities, irrigation facilities, small-scale agro-processing technologies,
credit institutions, specialized agricultural careers across the value chains
etc.
From youth-driven innovation perspective that
underpins the work we do, there is no doubt that opportunities will have to be
created in the value chains, from farmers, manufactures, wholesalers,
retailers, food services, and service providers, like storage companies,
transport companies, banks, and other institutions. For our part as
Commercial Agricultural Youth Chamber (CAYC), we are excited and ready to offer
further support such as securing buy-in from industry players, resource mobilization,
identification and screening of beneficiaries, leadership and entrepreneurship training
and mentoring, market linkages, Business to business linkages, public private
partnerships, farmer-to-farmer exchanges and institutional linkages ,
coordination, monitoring and evaluation, results measurement and any other task
possible.
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