Not everyone wants to or can be a farmer. What are other ways young people can work in or support the agriculture sector? How do ICTs facilitate this?

Globally, the agriculture sector is aging, with the average farmer around 60 years old. At the same time, young people are struggling to find work, often moving to urban centers for employment opportunities. Can information and communication technologies (ICTs) provide an avenue to increase youth’s participation in agriculture, making it a more profitable and sound career path? In the run up to World Telecommunications and Information Society Day on May 17, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), in partnership with the Climate Smart Agriculture Youth Network (CSAYN), will host a month-long online discussion on the Climate & Agriculture Network for Africa (CANA) platform about youth in agriculture and how they are using ICTs to innovate, address climate change and engage in agribusiness.

Beginning on April 15, join us every Monday to respond to and discuss our question of the week with others invested in youth in agriculture. This discussion will culminate in a webinar on Wednesday, May 15 where topics related to youth and ICTs in the context of agriculture will be covered by experts and young people alike.



Week 3 (29 April – 3 May):
Not everyone wants to or can be a farmer. What are other ways young people can work in or support the agriculture sector? How do ICTs facilitate this?

As the most active users of ICT tools, young people are already working to support the agriculture sector by developing ICT based solution for agriculture (More in this book : Innovate for agriculture: Young ICT entrepreneurs overcoming challenges and transforming agriculture by The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA).

If we want more youth involved in agriculture we need to support them by facilitating access to finance, information... empowering those who are already innovative so that they can inspire the new generation to take action and change the perception of agriculture.

I agree that not everyone can or wants to be a farmer, however, I think that we need to dig deeper and ask them 'why' and let them identify the particular reason(s). A poll or survey using ICTs could help in getting responses. I addition, the question could be how valuable are farmers in a community. This could lead to developing a farming index, and ICTs can play a strong role in this. This could also identify that most communities are in need of some of the same things. such as education, finances, technologies, expert advice, community outreach and designing a project, so the needs index would serve as a

With regard to ways young people can work in, or support the agriculture sector, I think that in a approaching the sector as an ecosystem, where there is farming,Foodscape design, engineering, greenhousing, maintenance of technology, consulting will help young people see the huge opportunities in farming. aspire to become involved.

Developing Youth Experts, especially issues around climate change, sustainable technologies for power generation, marketing, conservation, reforestation and Integrated Pest Management.

What a good and timely question! We probably want as many as possible but not all the youths in agribusiness because it is also not everyone's cup of tea. However, we should be worried with the downward trend in agriculture succession because the the estimated 10bilion population by 2050 will need food from farms which majority of younger generation is shying away.
May be we should all talk about the challenges making agriculture to be unattractive first. Mindset is a powerful change tool. We need to encourage right attitude towards agriculture right from school. Teachers would tell us to work hard or else, we could end up toiling in the farms with meager payments. Secondly, tilling the land was a form of punishment, sometimes attending to flower gardens! Before we embark on trying to make agriculture work for the youth, have first disconnected the link between agriculture and failure /non-performance?
We do not expect all the younger people to engage directly in agriculture, apparently it is one of the riskiest venture that even the insurance companies and finance firms shy away from. We can improve on the predictability of patterns both on and off farm activities through data management systems and technology will play a pivotal role on this. We also need to improve market structure because that is where the dilemma is... Show a young person a lucrative and promising market you will be surprised where they will get resources, products will be delivered!!
We should not say that youths want quick money, the thing is, young people won't waste their time on a venture that doesn't bring rationally good margin.
So lastly we need to streamline marketing activities, apparently farming one of the most lucrative ventures, but filled with Middle men who reap bigger than the sower because they carteil the market and ride on assymetry of market information!
A farmer's nightmare is the market. Thanks to technology, even though some innovations have sustainability issues. ICT will reduce cost of production, boost data sharing and usage, crop and Livestock husbandry and linkages. ICT is still on the lead as a panacea to solving youths laxity in embracing agriculture.