Forum global sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (Forum FSN)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION BELOW

1. Mon expérience en tant que jeune dans lesecteur agricole.

Merci de nous associer aux discussions sur ces thèmes importants. En tant que Educateur dans un collège dans mon pays, j'ai mis en place une coopérative scolaire avec mes élèves. Nous pratiquons l'agriculture en cultivant l'hevea et le manioc.

2. Principal réalisations et réussites.

Nous avons cultivé 5 hectares de pepinières d'hevea, nous allons vendre 3 hectares et garder les 2 hectares restants.Nous avons également recolté 10tonnes de manioc que nous avons vendu.

3. Questions à poser aux experts.

Je demanderais aux experts denous donner des solutions afin de mobiliser des fonds pour élaborer des projets agricoles en faveur des jeunes ?

1. My experience as a young farmer.

Thank you for involving us in the discussions on these important topics. As an teacher in a middle school in my country, I set up a school cooperative with my students. We practice agriculture by growing hevea and cassava.

2. Main achievements and successes.

We have cultivated 5 hectares of hevea nurseries, we will sell 3 hectares and keep the remaining 2 hectares. We also harvested 10 tons of cassava which we sold.

3. Questions for experts.

I would ask the experts to give us solutions in order to mobilize funds to develop agricultural projects in favour of young people?

Dear All,

Thank you to colleagues that have already contributed, we commend you also for addressing and focusing on the objectives and themes highlighted.

Kindly keep the ball on, and share also this with relevant networks in the region

Regards,

Thembani Malapela

Facilitator

I am engaged in research and development yet I was grown in cultivating my families land in rural side of the country in Ethiopia. I was always in search of technologies that can enhance the productivity of my families land as we were depend our livelihood on it; from food to income generation for sustainability.

Yet; the access of technological packages the fit to our existence of agro-ecological zone was almost negligent (closer to zero) because of different factors like distance to the main rural towns and others.

What motivated me to engage on agriculture was; because of the reason that I encountered while I was a farmer in my family’s plot of land.

My achievement engaging in the research and development me and colleagues has tried our bests to involve in the scaling up of different technologies to the pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in Afar and Oromia (Metehara district) like chicken birds and bread wheat in small scale irrigated areas. We were successful as it was a new intervention to the area few years ago.

Dear All members,

It is refreshing and exciting to see the world moving towards the future thus thinking of the youth, agriculture, ICT and rural development. Engaging rural youth in agriculture with youth led ICT solutions coupled with the development of needed infrastructure is key to Africas growth, ending hunger and poverty. I will like to address the questions for this all important discussion;

1. Experience as a Youth in the Agriculture Sector

I have experience as an advisory service provider in the agricultural sector for ten years, as an agripreneur in poultry and livestock production, and innovative financing of small holder farmers in rural areas. All these is motivated by one thing "feeding myself and others without relying on the external world".

With my work as an advisory service provider (extension officer) i had the opportunity to train many including youth in crop production, livestock production, and value chain processes, etc. Taking up a current training of rural farmers in the rice and maize value chain in Ghana on Farmer Business School (FBS) with the objective of explaining the financial implication of agricultural technology application, I have observed that young farmers that attended the training programme have the willingness to pursue farming but are looking for simple technologies to overcome the drudgery involved. They also want rural infrastructure of roads, schools, and telecommunication developed so as to transport their inputs with ease; educate themselves and children; and access Agricultural ICT solutions to enhance productivity.

I started poultry and livestock production in 2015, due to the realization of the high import bill associated with poultry product in Ghana. The objective of the poultry enterprise was to increase in poultry production by farmers. This is achieved through production day old chicks, rearing them for six week (pullet stage) and sell to both domestic and commercial farmers. With this several households established backyard poultry farms to serve their egg and meat needs. One key factor leading to my poultry business model was the practical training I received from Creating Champions in Livestock Agribusiness Incubator that have enhance my skills in poultry breeding, hatchery processes and business management. This shows the importance of skills training and entrepreneurship in agriculture.

Studying trends on how savings is perceived and the unavailability of financial service providers in the rural areas, we have developed an innovative savings and financing scheme for small holder farmers in the rural areas and piloted since 2016. Small holder farmers are put into groups, taken through financial literacy education and savings done through produce or anything of value. The Project is named Save Everything of Value project (SEVAP) since the agricultural produce that they have is of monetary value which is converted by a "Group Offtaker" and the monetary value placed into their individual accounts. Withdrawals and other payments are made through mobile money which help reduce the risk and financial burden of travelling to financial institutions far from the locations.

2. Major Achievements and Success Stories

I have impacted many farmers including youth with adequate knowledge in agriculture to transform their lives.  Undertaking the poultry business has initiated more than 100 households to keep backyard poultry for their egg and meat needs and trained the youth in poultry production. With the innovative savings scheme, small holder farmers have been given the opportunity for financial inclusion to enhance their livelihoods.

Raising finance for poultry project was a major challenge that was solved by consulting friends to help with some money which helped to start the business.

Below are few success stories of youth engaged in agriculture in Ghana:

1. Cynthia Aveh (Founder- TrustFarm Ltd and Greencredit)

Cynthia is a graduate of the Founder Institute Accra cohort 2017 where she founded Trustfarm and Greencredit respectively. Trustfarm is founded on technology to provide a sustainable market for food crops and livestocks for small and large holder farmers. Greencredit leverage on blockchain technology and initial coin offering to raise fund to plant more trees, and save the ecosystem through beekeeping. She has the ambition as a young woman to impact the world through agricultural entrepreneurship.

2. Micheal Sakyi (CEO-SM Golden Bee)

SM Golden Bee is an Agribusiness company founded by a young man for beekeeping and production of soap, cream with the honey, wax and propolis. He also offers practical training for other youth especially in rural areas. He objective is to protect the ecosystem, preserve bees for increase plant pollination and supply of valuable bee products to the society.

3. Gideoa Padi Konotey (CEO-Goat Masters Ltd)

Goat Masters Ltd is an agribusiness firm focused on value addition to goat with special focus on value chain form; rearing, butchering, processing, packaging, marketing and distribution of livestock into various consumables (http://www.goatmastersgh.com/).

4. Trotro Tractor Ltd

A team of young passionate Africans using internet of things (IoT) and technology to change the lives of smallholder farmers through the provision of platforms which makes agricultural mechanization (Tractor) service available, accessible and affordable to enhance productivity, improve efficiency and reduce post-harvest loss (http://www.trotrotractor.com)

These and many other youth exist in the agriculture space in Ghana that need support and the encouragement to achieve the goal of ending hunger and poverty.

 3. What the Rwanda Youth Conference Should Address

a). Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship:

What harmonize effort is been taken on the African countinent to ensure youth are employed in Agriculture?

b). Digital Innovation to Overcome Agriculture Value-Chain Constraints,

What step are been taken to address the infrastructural constraints associated with digital innovations in Africa?

What is the policy position on Digital Innovations?

What financing scheme exist for digital innovation in the Agriculture value chain in Africa?

c). Future of Work in Rural Economy - of the conference?

The Future of work in rural economy will improve only with decent rural infrastructure. Can we have a resolution for Governments to tackle the rural infrastructural deficient along side embarking on youth employment in Agriculture to address hunger and poverty?

Having grown up in an environment were all food products are bought and never involved in the actual production of these agriculture produce, got me thinking ON how expensive it is providing food for those people living in towns especially if you are bread winner of a family. It is from this view that I see an opportunity for business and consider to venter in (agriculture).

One English phrase says an apple does not fall far from its tree, so I have been. I have grown up in the city and the only form of activity done is schooling after which we start chasing after jobs. I do not know if this is the modern African way of life. My guardians little did they talked about agriculture and if they did it was so negative.

Why then do I want to venture into agriculture?

It is an area I feel passionate about that I can contribute manful to my nation and Africa at large were food security is concerned. In addition to this I will learn more in there are of research as it would be easy to conduct research on my farm.

Why am I not starting early?

Politics, Politics! In Zambia in some areas to get the land it’s very difficult as one has to have a political affiliation for easy access of land. Little support is given to the youth and not having faith in them.

Hello All,

It is my delight to contribute to the ongoing consultation. I would like to address three of the topics the consultation centers on.

1. Experience as a Youth in the Agriculture Sector

My experience as a young person involved in the agricultural sector in Nigeria has been sweet and sour, sweet because I grow my own food, most of them anyways and also make money from growing it when I sell the produce. I also train other young people living close to me, on my farm various crops they can make money from and those far away using the internet(WhatsApp) and their success makes me happy. Sour because of the numerous challenges involved in farming two of which for me has been having reliable experienced farm hands(despite the fact that i train young people on how to effectively grow the horticultural crops I grow and use them on contract basis, they tend to absond especially when I need them the most). Second of is getting good land for farming near my farm. Most of the land here have been mined on and their top soil removed, hence I am settled with a small space that I have to grow in sacks by mixing soil with manure. Second is the slow acceptance of technology use in Agriculture in Nigeria, leading to no customers most of the times.

Growing up in a family farming background, I developed an interest in farming even though I wanted to study engineering. Well, I eventually studied Agriculture(B.Agric with options in Soil Science and Meteorology) and after my compulsory National Youth Service (NYSC), I started my company Agritechnovate Solutions Enterprise which so far saw me involved in various farming areas: Poultry(for egg production), Horticulture - African vegetables: Ugu(Telferia), Ewedu(Jute), Amaranth and Celosia; also crops like Cucumbers, Peppers, Tomatoes.

2. Major Achievements and Success Stories

Well, major achievement for me as a young person involved in the Agric sector in Nigeria has been starting my company, because by means of it we have been able to train many young people, setup several farms across the country, procured and installed farm technology in farms. Technologies such as nipple tip drinkers for farm animals, drip irrigation systems, sprinklers, spray tubes and other technologies for crop farmers.

As a service oriented company, we need clients who wants their farm setup or who needs our procurement and setup of farm technologies service, due to the slow acceptance of technology in the Agriculture sector in Nigeria we utilize innovative ways of getting clients using the internet. We promote our services on our Facebook Page and share them on other Agric focused groups with high follower ship, that way we reach a lot of people who may be interested in our service. We also advertise our farm technologies procurement and installation services on a popular forum board in Nigeria - Nairaland, where we have gotten most of our clients for 3 years now! We also share our services on Agric focused WhatsApp groups, and on my Agric blog.

Success story? Well, not your typical kind of success story. Like I mentioned, technology is been slowly adapted in Agricultural sector in Nigeria. I remember when we started promoting the use of technology in farming by the use of treadle pumps, drip irrigation, sprinklers at all there was zero to nothing response, many farmers prefer to wait for rain or use only a petrol pump and one hose to irrigate 1 acre, however in recent times more and more people have seen the need to embrace the use of these technologies to make farming easier and attractive to the youth, until Africa as a whole adpats the use of technology in farming, most of its young population will never want to do agriculture or anything related to it!

Also learning of the success of those I have trained on various farming practices as well as those who got better results from using the farm technologies we installed for them, I feel ecstasy...That for me is real success!

3. What the Rwanda Youth Conference Should Address

If given an opportunity, I would you ask the experts at the Rwanda Youth conference, the following questions below centered on each of the three sub-themes –

a). Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship,

What incentives have you put in place to create employment for  youth or empower young people already in Agriculture?

b). Digital Innovation to Overcome Agriculture Value-Chain Constraints, and

What sustainable digital solutions are available for young people to do business seemlesly across the value chain?

c). Future of Work in Rural Economy - of the conference?

What new opportunities will be made available in the Agric sector for rural youths?

Am fortunate to be part of a group of over 40 scientists including not less than 10 food scientists. We are from different parts of Africa. We are a group which intends to use disruptive thinking to develop the food sector in Africa. Our goal is to build rural entrepreneurs who are the future of food production systems in Africa. We are food revolutionists who are using 2 basic methods as our foundation for food processing in Africa that is heat and fermentation techniques. Most of the members have done their Food Science degrees in Italy which is considered the modern pioneers of the modern food industry. The same development techniques used by farmers in Italy can easily be used on the African continent. A lot has to be done to drive the food industry in Africa and feel that basic food processing techniques should be at the fingertips of all rural food producers in Africa. Our group is called the African Food Revolution and our activities can be viewed on our website which is www.africanfoodrevolution.org. It is imperative that we use passion, intuition, novel technologies and basic food processing techniques to fully exploit the African food market and create wealth and employment in food production platforms.  

Dear all,

Thanks for the consultation. 

The Centre d'Actions pour l'Environnement et le Developpement Durable in Benin conducted in 2017 a study to explore the youth profile regarding their implication in agribusiness. The report provides insightful results and shows that youth are heteregenous and should be categorised before any initiative of youth implication in agribusiness. The study reveals four categories of youth: 'Undecided no-entrepreneurs', 'entrepreneurs with agricultural traning', 'entrepreneurs without agricultural traning' and 'no-entrepreneurs interested by agribusiness'. Further, The cross-analysis of these categories with some indicators of the business environment in agriculture shows that they cannot succeed in this business environment unless some capacitive imperatives are given to them. Hence, policies should consider the profile of youth in their programmes, support the improvement of the agricultural training curriculum by including capacities imperatives and improve the business environment in agriculture.

Therefore, the experts at the Rwanda Youth conference could discuss for a). Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship, how to mainstream the youth profile and capacities imperatives in the policies and curricula, respectively. 

Regards.

Donald Houessou

1. Experience as a Youth in the Agriculture Sector

I believe that Agriculture is the backbone of an economy. I am a Plant Breeder. I am very interested in agriculture and that was what made me to apply as NAGRO volunteer in the ongoing NPOWER Programme in my Country Nigeria. So far I have gathered a lot of experience through trainings and seminars organized during this programme. I know some youths who have started farming and earning some money through this programme. In the near future I am planning to go into large scale farming. The only challenge now is the continuity of this programme which will be terminated very soon. Continuity and follow up with youths should be discussed in this conference. Also Youths need to be encouraged with loans to carry out their plans. If the Youths are encouraged to start something on their own, then our problems are half solved.

Thanks

My Motivation:

My story is my source of inspiration every day. I was raised by a single mother whose fate in her marriage was decided the moment she had a baby girl as her first issue. She had to leave, had to raise me alone, had to create a means of survival for us, then, agriculture saved us. She was hardworking and resourceful in many ways than I can think of and taught me how to grow vegetables the moment I could walk. Together we grew crops all season round, during the dry season, we moved closer to the river to plant vegetables for easy irrigation. I developed a deep connection and understanding of crop production ever since. She was able to raise me, give me the best education and till date I strongly believe that agriculture could save so many more people especially the girl child.

Major achievements and success stories:

After my graduation from the University of Nigeria Nsukka, where I studied Agricultural Extension I decided to intern in major Agric-based organizations mostly international NGOs to understand the work they do, the progress made towards grassroots agricultural development, the effectiveness of various existing Federal Government interventions in agriculture, the strategies to achieve the SDGs 1 and 2 and challenges limiting our goal of achieving food self-sustainability. This opportunity was one of the best times of my life, being a part of creating a solution to problems facing agriculture.

A few years later I decided to get actively involved in food production, to deploy my knowledge, skills and creativity into crop production, I had on lease a hectare of land for 5 years where I started with most crops; vegetables- Watermelons, Peppers, Tomatoes on a rotational basis. I germinated the seedlings in my house, raised them in the nursery before transplanting to the field. I was making enough profit as a startup, putting healthy food out there and progressing while doing what I love most. There are downsides to this, the expensive agro-inputs, labour, irrigation problems and unpredictable weather conditions, after the first few months I was learning, unlearning and keeping my records to ensure I was making progress.  Today, I have added a new staple crop, a vegetable –Maize, Okro and as I gain more space I will keep expanding and adding more crops. The benefits of being an agroprenuer most times outweigh the disadvantages because agriculture is risk-filled and some of these risks are not under our control, we can avert most of them by adequate planning.

I have never been more optimistic about the future, recently I was awarded by the Institute of International Education (IIE), New York through the Indigenous Biocultural Exchange Fund a grant of $5,000 due to impact from the work I do in food production in my local community. I was also selected for a prestigious scholarship this June to pursue an MSc in Food Security in the UK and my overall goal is to understand how other countries got to the stage where they are food secure, to understand the global drivers of food insecurity and policies that could yield huge benefits for the sector.

The Conference should address:

Post-harvest losses among other threats in Africa, especially Nigeria’s goal of achieving food security is a major setback. More than 70% of Nigerians are farmers, yet we are hungry, prices of foodstuffs go up as soon as there is a seasonal change. During the on-season of certain crops, the quantity disposed of in marketplaces and farms are so much that we are left with nothing in the coming months. Value addition to our agricultural produce could assure food available all year round. Also, according to World Bank Group Agriculture, women farmers could raise 150million people out of hunger and malnutrition if equipped with as much knowledge, information and capital as the men. Women involvement in Africas's (Nigerian) agriculture is still very little because most of them do not have access to arable land, capital and training on new farming knowledge. These are factors that if addressed could secure Africa’s food future.