Proceedings discussion No

Andrew Isingoma, Agriculture consultant, Rwanda

To contribute to the conference, we invite you to share your experience and views by replying to the following questions:

1. Experience as a Youth in the Agriculture Sector

Agriculture sector occupies a major percentage in the private sector in my country and plays a major role in GDP. There is attendance of assuming agriculture to be particularly for men in many African countries, this misunderstanding can be solved by providing motivation to younger people with good projects and allow them access to finance.  The government of Rwanda is doing the best to improve Agriculture by not depending on natural rain by improvements in irrigation systems and rain water harvesting. The country has done her best to improve the wellbeing of her people by giving improved seeds to farmers.

2. Employing youth in Agriculture

Global population is expected to increase to 9 billion by 2050, with youth (aged 15–24) accounting for about 14 percent of this total. While the world’s youth is expected to grow, employment and innovative opportunities for youth – particularly those living in developing countries’ economically stagnant rural areas – remain limited, poorly remunerated and of poor quality. The employment of youth in Agriculture sector is a major act that can bring agriculture to good standard of feeding her people and to develop the continent at large, this is so due to the fact that, Youth are willing to work and they have ability to show performance, second; youth people occupy a larger percentage in the population system.

3. AGRICULTURE IMPROVEMENT

in my country ministry of Agriculture and have done best to improve Agriculture technology and wellbeing of her people than ever before, this is evidenced by seeing the seed storage building in different parts of the country. There are also many agriculture projects that are supporting Agriculture development in Rwanda, though much is still needed.

A. Major Achievements and Success Stories

During my BSc-Research in Agriculture I developed a research project which were solving a problem of expensive chemical nutrient additives to farmers and were liked by Research institutions (RAB) which were finally published in CABI-Project. In my MSc-Research project, I developed maize candidate cultivars in the regions which were in needy, while in Uganda. I sometimes was being consulted by World Bank group to give data on Agriculture situation while included in online survey.

B. What the Rwanda Youth Conference Should Address

The conference should address  young beneficiaries of the Project for the Promotion of Entrepreneurship to the younger people especially women and ladies in which they are in situation of difficulty accessing finance, this can be achieved by government agreement with the banks and decentralized financial institutions to support their micro-enterprises of younger people. In order to overcome the challenges, providing solutions through its Support Service to  Finance and Rwanda have done her level best to educate youth and they occupy a big area in the public service, private sector and NGOs, and the country still doing her level best to improve youth and to include them in Agriculture sector. Much improvement is needed to make better the livelihoods of African youth and Rwanda.

C. Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship

There should be improvement in admitting youth in public service and to fund their projects, this can be a good step in development once is done, their projects should also be financed. Youth to successfully participate in the agricultural sector, access to both information and education are fundamental and prerequisite; this can help to be able to acquire knowledge of agricultural production and processing techniques. Young people need access to finance or facilitation for involvements in projects that can develop their livelihoods. This applies to developed and developing countries alike. However, the situation is particularly dire in many developing countries, where access to appropriate education and training often remains insufficient mostly in rural areas.

D. Digital Innovation to Overcome Agriculture Value-Chain Constraints

There are many modern projects which can help gene editing to overcome crop responding to climate, for example crops affected by drought can be changed by introducing resistant genes, and this can be done through gene editing through breeding systems. The introduction of genomic selection in research breeding programs, Bio-informatics and bio-statistical breeding programs, digital pivot irrigation systems on a large scale, Introduction of breeding management systems (BMS) in breeding programs, Marker assisted selection in the breeding programs. I can ask experts how the modern agriculture breeding systems can be introduced to help crops respond to climate change as well as the environment improvement in climate smart systems.

E. Future of Work in Rural Economy - of the conference?

1. What is the future work to improve agriculture systems in rural sector?

2. How can horticulture be improved to overcome malnutrition in rural Areas?

3. How can opportunity be created to the African youth to motivate youth in Agriculture sector?

4. Youth projects are many and needs to be established?

5. What is the vision of the country for the youth who have no mortgage for loan and hence have mental capacity to implement the projects?

Kevin Gallagher, Future of Agriculture (Asia), Mongolia

Dear Colleagues,

It is not just agriculture that needs discussion. Many youth, especially those with some skills or education qualifications, are concerned about the quality of health clinics, distance to hospitals and quality of education in rural areas. It is critical to take these into account when considering the goals and aspirations of young families. Capital access is probably next followed by having skilled persons nearby to make sure money spent is not wasted.

You may also want to look at Japan, Korea and USA where programmes for young farmers include skills training and access to low interest loans/start-up grants.

By the way, why did FAO cancel its programmes supporting national youth activities like 4H?

All the best,

Kevin Gallagher