2. Challenges of young farmers
Access to
land
Engagement
in policy
dialogue
Access to
education
and
information
Access to
financial
services
Access to
markets
4. Publication ‘Youth and agriculture: challenges and
solutions for new programmes.
Objectives
Document success stories of youth in
agriculture
Provide solutions for overcoming core
challenges related to engagement in
agriculture
Inspire
youth
practitioners
Raise awareness
and
development
6. Meet Eloï Tegba Toi from Togo
Youth Survey
Senegal regional
youth
consultation
Youth day of
IFADs farmers
forum
Youth
entrepreneurship
project proposal
Member of
formulation
mission
Meet FAO
Director General
7. Case studies on youth and ICTs.
Information
• Distance learning in Brazil
• Youth resource centers in Zambia
• ICTs for extension services in Ghana and Kenya
Markets
• Connecting input providers-producers-buyers
in Kenya
• Market price information services in Ghana
Financial
services
Policy
dialogue
• Crowdfunding in Grenada
• E-discussions and social reporting worldwide
through YPARD
Good morning everyone, in this session I would like to share some of the findings of FAO’s research on rural youth and how this guided us in our approach in working with rural youth. To illustrate our findings, I will also show two videos made by rural youth from the Philippines and from Togo with whom we work and that are part of successful producer groups. After my presentation, we will connect on skype with the two young people that made the videos.
In 2011, FAO in collaboration with MIJARC and IFAD conductedresearch on the challenges thatyoungfarmers and rural youththatwant to engage in agriculture face. This wasdonethrough on-line surveyswhichwere sent out to around 800 organizationsworldwide and wereceived more than 440 replies. The main challenges identified for youngfarmerswere the following: Some youth have land but lack finance to invest in their land. Youth are seen as a risk category by financial institutions and thus do not give loans easily. On top of this, youth often lack the required collateral (often land) to take out a loan. Youth lack access to land because of a few reasons: because of increased life expectancy, inheritance also happens at a later age. Population growth leads to ongoing sub-division of land. Additional challenges stated are access to markets. Youth often cannot counter other strong market actors because they are not sufficiently organized. They lack access to formal education systems but also to adequate agricultural trainings.
Thisis a lessknowndomain. But we know thatthere are young people who have successfullyovercomethese challenges. Wejustneed to go out there and findthis information and document it.
So FAO came up with the idea of the publication. But werealizedwecan not do thisalone. So a partnershipwasestablishedbetween IFAD-CTA-FAO building on ourdifferentstrenghts.