Nobel laureate Yunus points to partnership FAO with boost rural entrepreneurship

4 September 2019, Rome – FAO Director-General, Qu Dongyu, met with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus on Wednesday to discuss global agricultural policies and a joint project that FAO and the Yunus Social Business venture fund are engaged on in Central African Republic (CAR).

Yunus said he found FAO’s new leader a “down to earth person” and that they discussed a range of issues including agriculture’s environmental impact and the way that plastic is harming food chains.

The two discussed the issue of youth and agriculture, noting the migration of people from rural to urban centers.  A phenomena, which is depleting the agriculture sector of human capital.  Yunus also emphasized that if too many young people in developing countries leave their villages, those who remain as farmers tend to use “old-fashioned” techniques, thus pointing to the need for promoting young people as prospective rural entrepreneurs rather than as job seekers in cities. The two agreed that the sector needs to be transformed and attractive to the youth.

Qu Dongyu, highlighted that there is also a need to look a different business models in agriculture. Production and access to markets needs to be innovated at the country, regional and interregional levels. He continued to note the possibility of consumers purchasing directly from producer modernizing how we think about agriculture today.

FAO and the Yunus Social Business are, with funding from Italy’s government, working together on an experimental project fostering rural entrepreneurship in CAR.

Yunus won the Nobel Prize for his work on microcredit and is part of the FAO-Nobel Peace Laureates Alliance for Food Security and Peace.