SVCDC - KenyaIDPA - UgandaCURAD - UgandaCAF - MaliAgBIT - Zambia CCLEARr - Ghana

Ralph von KaufmannUniBRAIN Facility Coordinator

Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa

Chair NIABI 2112 Panel on  Opportunities for youth in agriculture

and Grassroots Incubation 17.00 – 18.30 hrs February 7, 2012,

New Delhi, India

Opportunities for youth in agriculture and Grassroots Incubation

CONTENT

Opportunities for youth in agriculture and Grassroots Incubation

• Namanga Ngongi 

African leaders and heads of state are concerned about the the role of young people and their contribution to long-term development in Africa.

Given the youthful face driving the so-called “Arab Spring,” the focus on young people at the annual summit of Africa’s leaders is both timely and fitting.

There are more young people in Africa than ever before—over two-thirds of Africa’s one billion people are under the age of 30. 

Despite increased migration to the cities, most of Africa’s young people still live in rural areas.

Rationale: Africa cannot afford to miss its demographic bonus

Opportunities for youth in agriculture and Grassroots Incubation

• Namanga Ngongi And most of them, whether rural or urban, are unemployed.

• To build a continent where people can work and live with a degree of prosperity, we must invest more resources in the land -- and in the young who live there.

• Together, these are Africa’s greatest assets.

Seven out of ten Africans earn their living by farming. It is the backbone of most of our economies.

• The market for African staple foods like maize, milk, meat, banana, sorghum, rice and millet is estimated at over USD$150 billion a year. This market is far larger than the export market for internationally traded African cash crops like coffee, tea, and flowers. 

Rationale: Africa cannot afford to miss its demographic bonus

Opportunities for youth in agriculture and Grassroots Incubation

• Namanga Ngongi 

Yet, even at this decisions and policy processes for agriculture in Africa as they are the generation that will have to ensure that the continent’s growing population is fed.

Rationale: Africa cannot afford to miss its demographic bonus

Opportunities for youth in agriculture and Grassroots Incubation

Lindiwe Majele Sibanda heads the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN).

• As efforts are being made to “re-brand” Africa to other parts of the world, African leaders have an opportunity to “re-brand” agriculture across the continent, particularly for our youth. 

To make agriculture attractive to the young, it needs greater resources—for education, for infrastructure, for improving the business environment for agriculture in ways that will raise incomes and expand the agricultural value chain. 

The viability of African agriculture relies on the action of people at all levels.

• But Africa’s leaders should do more to spur private-sector participation in farms of different sizes as well as in agro-processing and support services such as finance and machinery-rental services.

Rationale: Africa cannot afford to miss its demographic bonus

Opportunities for youth in agriculture and Grassroots Incubation

Lindiwe Majele Sibanda heads the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN).

• One key need is investment in higher education—not just for the agricultural sciences, but for training in business, marketing, finance, policymaking and engineering, to create new generations of professionals who can build Africa’s agro-industrial capacity.

• This should not be limited to the tertiary level but should include a major focus on technical institutes that produce middle level technicians. 

We must also invest in transport and ICT infrastructure to enhance the competitiveness of African agriculture and build trade across the continent.

Rationale: Africa cannot afford to miss its demographic bonus

Opportunities for youth in agriculture and Grassroots Incubation

Lindiwe Majele Sibanda heads the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN).

• The feeding of Africa is a huge market opportunity; one that can create millions of badly needed jobs. 

African leaders should also start looking at agriculture as a business and farmers as small businessmen (and businesswomen).

• All this will be possible only if African governments put in place policies and regulations as well as stable policy and macroeconomic environment to improve the business environment for more private sector participation in the agricultural value chain including input supply, medium and large commercial farming, agro-processing and support services such as finance and machinery rental services. 

Rationale: Africa cannot afford to miss its demographic bonus

Opportunities for youth in agriculture and Grassroots Incubation

Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, Executive Secretary of the Agency of NEPAD and former Prime Minister of Niger: "Engaging African Youth in agriculture so it won't become a phenomenal bomb"

• Nowadays, more and more African countries are investing 10% or more of their budgets in agriculture. This will improve further in the coming decade, thanks to the inexorable generational succession politics.

Rationale: Africa cannot afford to miss its demographic bonus

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www.fara-africa.org/our projects/unibrain

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