Thank you to everyone who has provided comments and shared ideas and case studies so far!
Many of you have pointed out the need to engage youth in agriculture and the importance of this life stage in terms of careers and development as well as the challenges they are facing. Some of these challenges relate to agriculture in general (risk management, professionalization of the sector, climate change and value chain organization etc.) and some specifically to youth (such as data, blocked participation in agricultural programme and producers’ organization and access to insurance, finance and resources to name a few). We have also received a number of suggestions to support youth in agriculture, related to microfinance, producers’ organizations, deployment of green technologies, participatory approaches, dissemination of information on government programmes, among other ideas). Thank you for these and your other rich contributions!
Thinking about some of these actions raises a number of questions for me on how to ensure that youth under 18 are engaged. For example, can youth under 18 access financial services, join producers’ organizations and participate in national youth and agricultural programmes?
How can we ensure that youth under 18 benefit from such initiatives? Is it in the policy and programme design, or implementation? What approaches have worked to reach this age group with these services and resources or to support their access to decent work in agriculture?
Several of you have also raised the issue of the importance of education and vocational training in rural areas, highlighting cases where theory is linked with hands-on activities and students are linked with the private sector for practical experience. Please keep these cases coming! It would also be interesting to know if there are any examples of ministries of agriculture joining up with ministries of education and youth to do so.
Looking forward to our continued discussion!
Best regards,
Jacqueline
Jacqueline Demeranville