Engaging African Youth in Livestock, Fisheries and Aquaculture

Photo: Stevie Mann (ILRI)
Africa is a young continent, with 65% of the population below of the age of35. Youth unemployment is a major challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), representing over 40% of the continent’s total unemployment,70% of which live in rural areas (Africa Agriculture Status Report, 2015). Agriculture (both crop and livestock) is the predominant economic sector in most SSA countries, contributing over one-third of the region’s Gross National Product (GNP) and employing more than two-thirds of the labour force – the majority being youth.

Unfortunately, young people are leaving agriculture to pursue opportunities in urban areas, accounting for the rapid urbanisation witnessed in most African countries. The reasons are that they generally lack access to land, credit, training and new technologies. For those who secure access to land, the question becomes one of income, given that low productivity levels are a major challenge to making agriculture lucrative (Filmer and Fox, 2014). Addressing these issues is essential to integrating youth in agriculture for improved productivity and food security.

In light of this, the African Union Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) and the African Agribusiness Incubation Network (AAIN) established the African Youth in Livestock, Fisheries and Aquaculture Incubation Network (AYL-FAIN) in Dakar, Senegal in 2017. The vision is to establish a continental youth network that will be the leading forum for supporting investment and business start-ups in livestock, fisheries and aquaculture. Ahead of the launch of the AYL-FAIN in Cameroon slated for October 16 – 17, 2019 in Yaoundé, the ClimateSmart Agriculture Youth Network (CSAYN) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) are hosting an online discussion to inform youth about the network and to identify and share the challenges and opportunities young people face in the domains of livestock, fisheries and aquaculture.

Other partners include: International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Connect4Climate, African Development Bank (AfDB), Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), World Bank, New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), World Farmer’s Organisation (WFO), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment).

Dear Esteemed Youth Ambassadors in Livestock, Fisheries and Aquaculture,

In the margin of the official launch of the African Youth in Livestock,Fisheries and Aquaculture across all AU Member States ,we thought it wise as a team to moderate an online discussion to having meaningful contributions from all sectors.

Fish capture is on decline for the past decades, as a youth how can you improve or remedy the situation?
It has been proven that animal resources is a key contributor to addressing food and nutrition security . In your viewpoint can you describe some of the practical solutions to ensuring Animal resources reduces malnutrition and youth unemployment .

This forum is a superbe initiative. Congrats to the organising comittee.

dear young african actors,

It's a real pleasure to us for your interest in our young organization, which is dedicated to achieving the goals of sustainable development. the theme of these exchanges is very interesting because it answers basic questions about subsistence, the resolution of problems to hunger and good nutrition through fishing, livestock farming and aquaculture. Of course, this topic fits with Goals 1, 2 and 3 of the SDGs. We are resolutely engaged with all other stakeholders to achieve the objectives of these reflections.

I am very encouraged with the desire to engage youth in livestock, fisheries and aquaculture. I am as much equally concerned with the impact of these ventures on climate change, specifically the carbon footprint of each of these ventures.
Let's take cattle farming for instance and it's carbon footprint. A careful analysis of how much energy they consume relative to how much energy we get from them shows that it is clearly not sustainable if it's only for meat, particularly with the herding methods that are most obsevable in Africa. The gas emissions is another aspects of interest.
So, I would prefer that economic / financial gains should not be put above environmental consequences. But if cattle farming must be engaged in, then methods that reduce it's carbon footprint like ranching and exploitation of all possible derivatives be taken advantage off.
Personally as a farmer, my livestock ventures are strictly organic and 100% sustainable. They have an almost 0% carbon footprint and are actually climate change mitigating types of agriculture.
If we must remain sustainable, we must practice climate smart agriculture.

For youth to engage in livestock production and fisheries there is need for firstly address the linked challenges of lack of information about these value chains (in terms of markets, production technologies etc); lack of skills amongst the young (in terms of improved farming practices; lack of financial resources to engage in this enterprise that requires capital input as well as lack of inadequate local infrastructure. If addressed systematically, these can overcome almost all the challenges hindering youth from engaging effectively in livestock production and fisheries. Examples of youth that have done well exist. It would be good to share some on this forum.

Hello everyone.

Fish is a very important resource gotten from water. The decline in the first population is not not course by over fishing in order to meet the protein requirement for the every going human population but it's also caused by big petrol chemical industries. These industries empty their waste into our sea, river and oceans there by introducing toxic chemicals into these water bodies making it unfit for the fish population to survive and reproduce normally this environment.

In order to increase the first population, if not all but one of the following measures can be put in place.

1) Formulate policies that will prohibit industries from emptying untreated waste into our water bodies.

2) Reduce over fishing by setting standards on the weight and particular size of fishes to be captured our our water bodies.

3) Promoting youths in Aquaculture by - Organizing training workshops and seminars to courage youths to take part in Aquaculture. Giving them the basic knowledge which is required to set up a pond. Give youths training on how to market their products from the pond and how to add value to these product in to maximize profit. And finally, youths who are interested in the venture but don't have the finances can be give start up capital or inputs or link them with potential sponsors in order to encourage them.

There is a need to train up the youth who want to embark on these projects and empower those already in this sector.

My view is that, engaging in rearing fish in fish ponds would be a sure way of introducing locally accessible white meat(protein) to communities, thus tackling issues of nourishment, but also serves as a resource base for trade, where youth can actively engage in fish sales as a sustainable business, thus solvimg the challenges of unemployment.

Apart from jobs creation. Mingling with nature is fun. Aqua culture multiplies rapidly. It gives a very high returns if manage properly..

This is a right step in a right direction. We need to wake up in Africa and best time is now. We have to eat what we grown and grow what we eat. Nobody can feed your family better than you. Engaging in aquaculture and livestock program for the youth is a giant step.

firstly, youths are energetic and anything done through them is likely to flourish. however youths lack information to such opportunities, hence the need to identify youths that are involved in fish production or rather livestock and offer training and sensitization. there is need to link them to the market where they can both buy all they need for production and also sale their products.

climate change is real and one of the contributors from the many is the issue of charcoal burning especially in Southern Africa, an act which has contributed hugely to the deforestation and now Southern Africa us paying the consequences. Hence, it is the best time farmers learnt other safety and profitable means of doing agriculture as a business for their survival.

in order to avoid unnecessary cost associated with livestock and fish production, I would suggest that it is done in groups where small scale farmers of the same area regroup themselves and work as a team, and this can also be done right in their respective farming plots.

Largely our farmers both elderly and youths lack information with regards to how agriculture can be treated as a business and through this program it can be one way to realize that dream.

Agriculture across Africa more so in Southern Africa has proved not profitable yet very costly and this is one of the reasons most farmers are now migrating to urban areas in search of a livelihood.

fish in Southern Africa is becoming hard to access and this is because rivers are drying up, hence, as countries in those areas are approaching rain season, there is need to extensively harvest rain water which can be used for the fish production at all seasons.

Dear Sir,

Very impressive but will deeply appreciate having concrete examples or case studies with measurable impact.

Having disaggregated data shall equally be useful in accessing the needs -based assessment.

Thanks

Dear All,

how canw e ensure young people engage more in the livestock sector or entire agricultural value as a business and being lucrative ? What are some of the tangible solutions to consider or recommendations.

Thanks

How can we ensure we grow what we eat and eat what we grow?

Dear Colleagues ,

How can we use livestock, fishieries and aquaculture to contributing to Nature Based Solutions?

Please lets give examples of success stories...

Thanks

Excellent idea but how do young people come in the picture towards creating decent jobs for their peers?

Training is great. Can we suggest some training modules or skills set to be prioritized?

Dear colleagues,

Please you are really hitting the nail on the head but equally upload some studies or report findings with strategic pictures by clicking on the Attachment button..

I think, what frightens most youths to go into livestocks and other agribusiness is simply, the Lack of orientaion and We can associate to that the lack of funding and lack of skills to some extends.

Therefore, my advices include

- Organise Seminars to train, guide and orientate such youths who desire the envy to practice livestock breeding and other agriculture activities. Example : One may have insufficient money(capital) and wish to go for Broilers breeding. As a trainer (Mentor) we could re-orientate him/her towards another lucrative activity such as Rabbits breeding and apiculture, that necessarilly dont require huge investments(capital).

-After Organising training sessions on different livestock sectors, we could find a way to either partly or fully sponsor their livestock projects.
N.B: To encourage and motivate all trainees to participate during the training sessions, we could oblige each and every participant to submit a draft of a livestock project of their area of interest before the end of the training sessions.