Digital innovations are bringing youth back to agriculture
How digital apps and services are boosting rural employment.
FAO has developed four new apps to provide farmers with real-time information on weather, livestock care, markets and nutrition. (© FAO / Alioune Ndiaye)
Youth around the world are increasingly turning away from agriculture. Traditionally requiring tough manual labour and offering low wages, agriculture does not often appeal to new generations who generally prefer to try their luck finding jobs in cities.
Yet, agriculture has the greatest potential of all sectors to reduce poverty, for example in Sub-Saharan Africa where over sixty percent of its 1.2 billion population is under the age of 25. This growing youth population needs fruitful employment, and food and agriculture, perhaps re-conceptualized, have the potential to offer this to the youth.
The key is innovation.
There are already new ways of working in agriculture that harnesses digital and technological innovations, rendering it more efficient and, not as a small byproduct, providing new opportunities and services for young entrepreneurs.