Event Date: Sep 15, 2016
Time: 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM (GMT -5)
Location: United States
Online: Online Event
Event Links:
Information
This online chat will take place at the bottom of this page. Get a jump on the conversation and share a question or comment now.
Youth hold the future of the global agro-food system in their hands, but many young people in developing countries do not see agriculture as an attractive or viable career choice. How can we better engage youth and support their livelihoods as we plan future agricultural development projects?
Join our upcoming Ask Ag online chat on Sept. 15 from 12-1 p.m. EDT, where Agrilinks community members will dig into youth and employment. For one hour, experts will answer your questions and discuss new research, discoveries and findings in their own development work. It all takes place right here in our Comments section! This Ask Ag chat stems from a recent Feed the Future roundtable that addressed critical topics for global food security, including youth and employment. Participants discussed why youth and employment is important to food security, how demographic differences impact unemployment and what skills are required to integrate youth in agro-food systems.
There are two ways to get a head start on the discussion:1. Post a question for our experts right now in the Comments section below, and/or return to this page on September 15 from 12-1 p.m. EDT to engage in the live discussion.
2. Check out the "Youth and Employment" roundtable summary to read some thoughts from Feed the Future stakeholders on where priorities might lie in engaging youth.
Guiding questions:
- How can we ensure that youth voices are being heard in discussions on their role in agro-food system development?
- What tools and technologies can make agro-food system jobs more attractive and profitable for youth?
- How can youth advance food security in their communities apart from working in agricultural production?
- Youth are very diverse, in terms of gender, education, stage of their life cycle, etc. How should we engage different youth demographics differently?
A look ahead: The 10th Anniversary Global Youth Economic Opportunities Summit will convene influencers who create and implement innovative solutions, September 28-30, 2016, in Washington, D.C. Be a part of the leading global event for expanding youth economic opportunity.
Ask Ag Chat: Youth, Employment and a Food Secure Future
Mark Brennan, Ph.D. is the UNESCO Chair for Rural Community, Leadership, and Youth Development and Professor of Leadership and Community Development at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Brennan’s teaching, research, writing,... more and program development concentrates on the role of community and leadership development in the youth, community, and rural development process. In this context, much of his work has focused on community action, youth development and social justice. He is co-founder of the Global Network of UNESCO Chairs on Children, Youth and Community. Dr. Brennan has over 20 years’ experience designing, conducting, and analyzing social science research related to community and rural development. This work has involved extensive comparative research throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia and Central America. Dr. Brennan’s research and program development has been funded by a variety of government, foundation, and private sources and resulting in over 100 publications in leading peer-reviewed journals, books, and Extension publications, and over 175 presentations at professional meetings. His recent books include Theory, Practice, and Community Development (2013) and Community Leadership Development: A Compendium of Theory, Research, and Application (2013). All of his research and teaching outputs have been translated into outreach curriculum to facilitate the transfer of knowledge to a wider international audience. less
Lydia Mbevi is ACDI/VOCA’s regional gender and youth advisor based in Nairobi, Kenya. In her role, Mbevi ensures that programs in Africa are benefiting both men and women, girls and boys. These programs include livelihoods and... more economic empowerment, value chain development, agribusiness, health and nutrition, emergency response and food security. She supports programs in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia, Liberia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, the Philippines and Kyrgyzstan. Lydia is responsible for mentoring and building the capacity of the program gender specialists and youth advisors. She is also responsible for developing context specific resources and tools, supervising gender analysis, youth analysis and development of gender strategies and youth engagement plans, as well as ensuring that gender strategies and youth engagement plans supplement local government efforts. Lydia has a master’s degree in gender and development. less
Morgan Mercer is a Gender and Youth specialist at ACDI/VOCA. In her role, she provides technical guidance to programs related to gender integration, women’s empowerment, and youth development; and guides the design and... more development of technical strategies and tools in gender and youth for the organization. Prior to ACDI/VOCA, Mercer conducted gender assessments for CARE International in Mali and Tanzania, and developed curriculum and training content on behavior change interventions for youth for AED and Danya International. She has a M.A. in Development Practice from Emory University and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of South Carolina. less
Dina Karic is a Senior Advisor in Cardno’s Economic Growth group, based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). A competitiveness expert, she works on enterprise development, market facilitation and workforce development... more programs in the Balkans, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Prior to her role as a Senior Advisor, she was the Chief of Party of the USAID funded FIRMA project in BiH. The FIRMA project supported competitiveness of value chains in select sectors with the goal of increasing sales and employment, and also helped create Vocational Educational Training (VET) councils as a mechanism that allows the private sector to regularly communicate its needs. less
Gary Walker is the Senior Youth Advisor for Feed the Future in the USAID Bureau for Food Security. His job is to help Feed the Future to become more youth inclusive and to help mainstream youth across Feed the Future’s... more portfolio. He has extensive experience in development policy and programming, project design and evaluation. He has more than 40 years of experience with workforce development, education, rural livelihoods, food security and other areas. He has had long-term assignments as a COP, Senior Advisor and technical consultant in Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana and Zambia and has carried out scores of short-term consultancies in over 30 African countries plus Haiti and a few in Asia. He is a graduate of the American University School of International Service and the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. less
Comments
Hi Sarah, thanks for asking. One way to engage youth in the value chain is to find out what they are doing, why and what opportunities exist for them. This is basically a youth analysis at the value chain and is very specific to each value chain and therefore is context specific. Another way is to encourage private sector to work with youth and create employment at different nodes in the value chain with a view to mentoring or allowing youth to be interns to learn and grow and eventually become service providers at different levels of the value chain. Another way that works is to get youth to think beyond production where they have to have land and other resources, but rather get them to think about how they can provide support services. This has worked well in Zambia http://www.acdivoca.org/projects/production-finance-and-improved-technology-plus-profit/ and in Tanzania http://www.acdivoca.org/projects/tanzania-staples-value-chain-nafaka/
Hi Sarah, a lot of our work begins in the design stage, making sure that we have the right information to develop our program activities with a youth-sensitive lens. This includes formative assessments that shed light on youth roles, relations, assets, constraints, aspirations, and opportunities. On Microlinks, there's a set of analytical tools for working with youth (using a value chain/market systems approach), including a youth livelihoods development program guide, rapid youth labor market assessment, guide to cross-sectoral youth assessments, and a girl-centered value chain analysis and situation assessment.
ACDI/VOCA has also just conducted a youth engagement in agricultural value chains study in four Feed the Future countries under our LEO program (http://www.acdivoca.org/projects/leveraging-economic-opportunities-leo/), including Guatemala, Liberia, Uganda, and Nepal. It will be published soon on Agrilinks/Microlinks and we have some documented promising practices in terms of methods to mainstream youth in agricultural development programs as well as entry points for youth in value chains and what the potential opportunities and constraints are. We'd be happy to share once it's published (end of September).
Lydia & Morgan,
These are excellent tools and I appreciate the emphasis on making solutions work for youth in their current state. We can't drive youth into a system that they're simply not interested in. Another question, if I may:
At Tetra Tech we focus on "pull", essentially focusing on the market demand to drive growth to smallholder farmers and vulenerable groups. Have you noticed any particular benefit that the market gained from having youth involved in one of the value chain stages? For example, my assumption is that youth's involvment and abilityto use GIS systems and/or apps has increased efficiency. Can you think of any other area? What have you experienced? Thanks!
One that comes to mind is transport, as you know the motorcycle taxi has hit Africa like a storm. This has definitely led to an increase in transport of goods and services to areas that were previously hard to reach. The pull approach is great because it is sustainable and self driving. Can you share any of your resources on this approach?
Hi Lydia,
Thank you for sharing your insight on boda-bodas! They're dangerous but certainly a way to expedite delivery of perishable goods. I appreciate your inquiry of our resources. At this time, we do not have any of our methodologies available online. However, my colleagues and I will be at the Making Cents Youth Summit and would love to discuss our success with the "pull" approach. Hope to see you there!
Another example is in within the input supply sector, serving as intermediary between input supplier and smallholder farmer. In Nepal, they call them Community Business Facilitators or Local Service Providers; in Zambia, they are called Community Agro-dealers; etc. We've seen this is both an attractive market segment for youth and the market demand is there to absorb youth (who have the necessary technical, business, and soft skills, usually where projects are supporting youth). Input suppliers in Nepal reported quadrupling sales through utilizing these CBFs. More needs to be done to document why this is, impact, and scalability, but I think it's worth exploring.
A new IFAD-UNESCO publication just out this month would be of interest. A very detailed and rich document.
'Learning Knowledge and Skills for Agriculture to Improve Rural Livelihoods', written by Dr Anna Robinson-Pant. It offers rich insights into what and how young people learn in rural areas, especially girls and women, which is key for creating inclusive sustainable societies. (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002457/245765E.pdf)
At ACDI/VOCA we have found that youth are great at being innovative and coming up with solutions to problems that they face. One area that I am passionate about is the work load on rural women and any technologies that reduce that labor are very popular for young women. Especially technologies that also contribute to quick cash such as low cost irrigation equipment or threshing and processing equipment. These are great areas to invest in for small enterprises for youth to use local resources to manufacture them. Check out our work in Tanzania on USAID's facebook page https://web.facebook.com/usaid.tanzania/photos/a.278886222227336.63574.268601206589171/1070234436425840/?type=3&theate
Related to this question, here are some examples that people might like from recent research in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Cambodia.
Egypt
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/Egypt-presentation.pdf
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/country-study-Egypt.pdf
Ethiopia
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/Ethiopia-presentation.pdf
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/country-study-Ethiopia.pdf
Cambodia
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/Cambodia-presentation.pdf
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/country-study-Cambodia.pdf
Recently there has been much focus on digital technologies as a tool to help engage more youth in agriculture and digital technologies have an important role. However, in the poorest countries and regions, appropriate technologies often bring the greatest benefits like labor-saving oil palm presses, cassave milling and rice hulling machines than can be operated manually. As Lydia notes, any labor-saving devices for women that reduce the search for firewood or water provide enormous opportunities.
There is a direct need for youth to be involved in nontraditional agriculture (niche markets, value added agriculture practices, processing) and entrepreneurial efforts around all of these.
We also need to help with family farm transition. It’s not uncommon for youth to wait nearly their entire lives to take over family farms. Without a plan or mechanism for giving them ownership they will quickly move on to other occupations, often far removed from their rural communities.
Chapter 5 of this report focuses heavily on these issues:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002457/245765E.pdf
One great way is for youth to join the cooperatives. Youth already have the numbers to make a change in their communities and they can transform the coops to ensure that they not only provide appropriate services to their members, but that these coops go beyond production to other levels of the value chain where there are plenty of opportunities for youth. Youth can also play a role in food security by studying and applying scientific methods that result in higher yeilding varieties and playing a key role in getting their 'parents' to try these varieties.
Lydia, your last comment identifies an opportunity(s) that shouldn't be minimized and that responds to an earlier concern about youths' lack of access to land and decision-making. Smallholder farming parents work hard to put their children in school so that they will have a "brighter" future. Unfortunately, the educational systems in many developing countries and rural communities, in particular, don't 'turn on the light' by providing experiences that allow students to appreciate and value their parents livelihoods or to acquire a basic foundational knowledge in math, science and technology with the critical thinking and problem solving skills that are promoted through experiential learning. If done properly, exposing students to agriculture through science teaching with, for example, a school garden or fish pond can leave an indelible mark on a student and open her or him to a future in agriculture related opportunities that may even exist within their parents own farm. I've met some really impressive young agri-entrepreneurs in the many countries I've visited who were exposed while a student to possibilities of agriculture by Peace Corps Volunteers who were teaching or working in their community. Each young person that I met had a small enterprises that grew from a 'niche' they identified within their parents farm system. Many of these young peopld have become specialty farmers, growing things like small ruminants, fish, mushrooms and organic garden produce on their parent's farm. One young man that I met in Ghana last year was named the national Cassava Grower of the Year in 2014. Other youth have found their 'niche' by drawing from their experiences and training to provide services to other farmers such as digging, harvesting and/or managing their fish ponds; by building hard to acquire equipment like wheelbarrows or palm oil presses from locally available materials; or by using their on or off-farm earnings to invest in a small gas engine to mill locally produced grains. While not 'the' solution, making an impression on youthy at a "young" age along with providing a good foundational knowledge and associated skills, can make a difference. In the US, we still have 4H and the National FFA that serve to encourage youth, particularly but not only from rural areas, to consider a future in agriculture. Formal education in science, math and technology can also be oriented to open this possibility, too, as was done a few years ago when aquaculture was promoted within school agriculture and science curricula as a means to expose students to agriculture, but also as a means to excite kids about learning math and science. These opportunities exist in almost every country.
The challenge of engaging youth in agriculture in their communities is sometimes referred to as the need to "rebrand" agriculture whereas the need is really one of transforming agriculture and rural life more broadly. The rebranding will come of its own accord as attitudes cange as a result of perceived real and new opportunities. Some youth can advance food security in their communities, for example, by opening a film center where league football games are shown using a solar powered TV and DVD or by developing a youth club that offers training but also social amenities. In brief, village life needs upgrading so those in rural areas enjoy living there and can balance sometimes hard farm labor with other pursuits. The opportunity to earn a bit more from farming may not be sufficient to lure youth back into farming of the larger environment is bleak and they risk again being cut off from new urban youth cultures, urban amenities and the greater social freedoms offered in cities. Traditional authority can be onerous for youth, so helping traditional rules to approach youth differently and to help empower them will also make the environemnt more appealing.
There needs to be recognition that while production is a viable livelihood for many youth, it's not the only one. When taking the entire agri-food system into account, there are many market segements within agriculture (on- and off-farm) that youth can benefit from, including transportation services, farm services (weeding, spraying), traders/aggregators, input suppliers, processors, etc.
On how to engage youth demographics differently, i would wish USAID missions in Sub Sharan Africa to engage the respective governments in promotion of youth organizations to make contributions at policy level. Policies formulated to guide youth agripreneurship in rural areas are based on 'assumed status' of youth involvement in agriculture. If initiatives like Feed the future can have a requirement for projects being financed by USAID to have a certain percentage of youth diversity in projects operating in the region, i think it will bring all the youth on board, empower them during project period and can achieve sustainability through follow-ups after project period.
Youth clubs can carry out community projects, such as tree-planting and soil erosion control, that can contribute toward maintaining the sustainability of the natural resources and ecosystem services that are required for successful agricultural production
That's a great point Bonphace and is slowly starting to change as new programs are designed. USAID now has a youth engagement policy, which is a good start. Check it out here https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1870/Youth_in_Development_Policy_0.pdf
I think this is a crucial question, especially with wide-ranging definitions of "youth." In Senegal, where I work with USAID/Education and Research in Agriculture, we try to work with youth ranging from out-of-school 12 year olds in rural villages and unemployed post-graduate degree holders in Dakar.
That’s a great question Thomas. I see key educational investments as essential (literacy, access, etc) to provide a basis for entrepreneurship. That said in settings where these are lacking, agricultural outreach and extension that is linked to universities, NGOs, and international organizations is absolutely essential to promoting innovation, adoption, entrepreneurship, and the application of new ideas. I see the land grant university model as being a major opportunity globally. Let’s talk more on this!
One area that is often overlooked is lifelong learning and intergenerational learning/transfer of knowledge.
Lifelong learning for young men and women
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/IFAD-UIL-presentation.pdf
It’s important that we promote youth entrepreneurship and education so that youth can create opportunities based on their unique skills, cultures, contexts, and locations.
This aligns with our experience as well. Often youth need support in building their own learning skills outside of the classroom. Agriculture always has changing information which demands those in the industry to learn and change over time. We've found that youth need support that fits into 3 different bucks: 1- Technical Agriculture 2- Enterprise Development 3- Soft Skills Development. We feel this 3rd bucket is often over looked in programs. We have found that supporting youth to develop their skills to problem solve, find information and continue their learning is key to both their short-term and long-term success.
Tailoring and targeting are crucial for success with youth because of the diversity, not only by age, gender, etc. but by culture. There is a book with the title "The underneath of things" written some years ago about Sierra Leone that explores the anthropolgical/social dimension and sets of assumptions that people bring to projects and activities. Without understanding the local cultural context, well-meaning and otherwise knowledgeable people can make egregious errors based on assumptions about what motivates people and why certain behaviors are observed.
At Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation we are seeing directly how youth are attracted the farming when new technologies produce time-saving, productivity gains. By commercializing the technologies there is long-term access to a responsive market. We are seeing that business models that are responsive to unique market needs are the most successfull, and I think that responsive market entry and marketing is very practical as opposed to relying on a single strategy such as pull mechansisms.
To the experts: Are there specific types of technologies that you have seen be more effective than others outside of ICT?
As we approach the end of the official hour for discussion, I would like to return to my original comment of 2 days ago. In order to get youth interested in agriculture, agriculture has to be profitable comfortably meet food security needs with sufficient marketable surplus for a comfortable living. This requries addressing the operational oversights that have fallen into an administrative void between the agronomist and social scientist. Basically you need to take the drugery out of the operation so crops are planted on time to meet the caloric needs of the farmer, etc.
You migth want to look at the success of "Green Revolution in Asia" and ask how much should be attributed to the improved yield potential develpped by IRRI and how much the farmers shift from water buffallo to power tillers. IRRI got the yeilds up but did not get the crop planted in time to take full advantage of the yield increase.
Are the Asian youth more interested in careers in agriculture than the African youth? If so why?
Thank you
Hi everyone,
In our experiences at Making Cents, we have found that youth and agriculture programs can forget they are working with youth and do not address youth from a development perspective. We've found that often programs focus more on agriculture enterprises designed for adults and hope youth find a way of fitting into these designs. In several of our programs, we've been working at leading with a youth development lens and then adding agriculture and enterprise development onto this foundation. Have others had similar experiences?
I think using a youth lens adds value and a different perspective to the analyses and allows practitioners to cross-check assumptions and strategies. However, we need a stronger evidence base that explicit targeting of resources at a particular youth cohort in particular circumstances (time, location) yields explicit and measurable outcomes that are demonstrably better than had the activity included youth implicitly. We have evidence for some areas but not others. For example, are we certain that targeting youth as youth is better than targeting youth as part of smallholder households where the household (male/female/young/older) are jointly the project focus but with activities disaggregated according to particular needs as opposed to, say, a youth in agriculture project that applies resources primarily for a specific youth cohort? When are there synergies, are there risks to non-youth of youth explicit programs if funding levels remain the same, are there implications for social capital building or the oppositite for cetain types of initiatives? I would love to have anyone suggest documentation that has addressed these types of concerns since this is an issue that design teams will need to address as youth in agriculture projects become more widespread.
Based on our experiences, programs that focus on smallholder farmers and do not recognize the special development issues and challenges of youth are not as successful as those where youth are being targeted with an understanding of their particular needs. The fundamental issue is that if youth are not targeted as youth, their special developmental needs and challenges are not recognized and so the initiative is less successful for them.
Hi Hillary,
I agree with your statement and the assumptions behind them seem sound. However, I am looking for quantitative evidence that shows a clear differntial outcome for those youth targeted as youth where there is a measurable improvement in outcome compared to youth benefitting impicitly, for example, in a project targeting all smallholders or all farm input suppliers that demonstrates 1) the type and extent of the improved outcome for youth and 2) that this does not adversely affect other project participants that are outside the target age cohorts. I need to demonstrate win-win scenarios, show that even in a situation where the budget is "x" amount, that shifting resources within a current program or project can aid youth while not disadvantaging other project participants. I realize that there are no perfect statistics and that some of the analysis is qualitative but I am at least trying to demonstrate more precisely the added value of a youth approach in order to address doubts that some have who are for example used to focusing on small holder farmers regardless of their age. I am also working on an annotated bibliography for USAID that focuses specifically on the issue of how best to mainstream youth into the agriculture sector. In short, any documentation or URL references that you may have that relate to what I have said above would be most appreciated. Thank you. You may send these directly to my email account: [email protected]
Youth engagement in agriculture and rural employment is problemmatic in many ways. Most of the major constraints faced - access to finance, new technologies, effective and relevant extension and information services, policy framework for entreprise development, etc. - are generic and constraints to all. Improving these for all age groups is probably the most important challenge. Efforts are needed to make these available to youth, but probably not at the expense of restricting for others.
The opportunity to help youth and allow them to exploit their skills and capabilities is in the realm of education. The InnovATE Project is looking at agricultural vocational training systems and quite a number of USAID countries have expressed interest in this. The challenge as mentioned before is that of making such programs relevant and market oriented. In the US some of the best youth development work comes from 4-H, FFA, and Junior Achievement. Thes programs require community support and a relatively long time frame to develop. This should probably be out emphasis.
The Philippine government has recently begun to emphasis such young farmer promotion activities - havign recognized that the average age of its farmers is in the upper 50s (as I remember it). How many other countries share this same demographic for farmers?
And of course the answer isn't just trainign for future farmers. Much opportunitiy and employment is to be found in agribusinesses supportign the sector and in other non-farm employment. These too require relevant training.
Good points, Gary. I agree that the constraints faced by youth are similar to those faced by a lot of rural smallholder farmers. Within every context, however, the degree to which some individuals have more or less access to and control over productive assets and capital will vary. Youth may often require more supports than adults in a lot of contexts; however, youth are not a homogenous group. Young women (or even adult women) may face greater barriers to profitable opportunities within agriculture relative to their male counterparts. When talking about development programs, we want to make sure we're not excluding people, but also creating environments where more marginal actors can equitably participate and experience opportunity.
Amazing chat everyone! Looking forward to more communication and interaction with all of you! A closing thought.
A great number of unemployed youth live in agrarian societies and rural areas. Sustainable employment opportunities in agriculture for youth are a growing concern. Understanding how future farmers acquire knowledge and skills is critical in forming responses to rural poverty and food security. The neglect of agriculture in national budgets, policies and investment is often compounded by inadequate education systems.
If we don’t address this issue it will not just affect agriculture and food security. The implications of youth rural un/underemployment are clear – national security issues (extremism, violence), unhealthy lifestyles (drug abuse, unsafe behaviors), and loss of human potential are all likely to occur and increase. Investing in youth and youth skills/careers related to agriculture can have a massive impact globally and locally.
There is a platform in Kenya Mkulima Young that has been able to engage the youth in agriculture. It provides online marketplace , information, humour and conversation. The platform development is through value co-creation where the young people engagement guided what functionalities to include. Its developed as a social good and through social entrepreneurship concepts and ideologies of solving a community problem – agricultural markets. In East Africa, it is one of the largest following on social media – over 90,000 followers and the website has over 1,000 visits per day. This is an indication that youth are in agriculture and they have embraced technology. Many argues that the rural youth are not competent in ICT but this platform has proofed wrong. In addition M-Pesa which is a ICT tech is utilized even in the rural areas without in capacity building.
Mkulima Young was featured as a study case in the AGRF report 2015 Chapter 5 on ICT and Youth in Agriculture ICT and Youth in Agriculture and also innovative for Agriculture (Report) by CTA. Despite the growth, its not funded in the development of . Mkulima Young android app and the website. Its by a Kenyan passionate to contribute to the agriculture in Africa.
Is crowd funding a viable option for a Agri -entrepreneur?
Although a lot is happing in this area in urban setting ot the e-enabled, will it be possible to involve the the village community into it.
In our particular surrounding in the Tonk district o Rajasthan the major issues are with small and marginal farmers with very limited land to try out alternative agricultutre other than the established traditional cash crops.
From AGRF Sight: ‘Few days ago we had a very big conference in Nairobi Kenya {#AGRF2016} It was a blockbuster moment for African agriculture as African leaders, businesses, and major development partners pledged more than US $30 billion dollars in investments to increase production, income and employment for smallholder farmers and local African agriculture businesses over the next ten years. The collective pledges at the AGRF are believed to represent the largest package of financial commitments to the African agricultural sector to date, backed by the broadest coalitions ever assembled in support of food production on the continent.’ My question
· How will small-scale {youths/women} going to benefit from this package?
· How do we influence the decision makers in AGRF so that even the youths can benefit from this ‘Seize the moment’?
#FarmboostFund
Regards.