Perfil de los miembros
Sr. Fernando Trinidad anaya
Organización:
Fundación Académica Cultura y Ciencia A.C.
País:
México
Campo(s) de especialización:
I am working on:
México: todos sus estados y varios de sus municipios, con redes de apoyo comunitario y en el fortalecimiento de sus competencias laborales, por medio del CONOCER.
Sr. Fernando Trinidad anaya
Phase Out Aging Farmers from Farmer Associations
Youths’ engagement in agriculture and in any other development sector is a national problem and even within the nation it could be regional or zone issue just the way it is in Nigeria. Take for example, northern part of the country specifically northwest, here the bottom line problems of youths for agriculture and food security development are more traditional more accurately than governance, literacy, technology adoption or policy implementation. Looking back at the days when rural-urban movement was normal daily agricultural marketing activity the youths were still born and bred in rural agricultural production system that provided high level food security engagements. After each day’s movement to urban areas the youths trace the way back to rural areas same day for rural life continuity. But rural-urban migration started taking shape when rural youths come to understand they are sidelined in community development aspects controlled by the elders. Remember, agriculture was then very attractive and profitable and any person who entirely depends on agriculture was well respected in the community. However, in the elders state of mind a youth is always small-minded disorganized human being that should not be entrusted with community’s development aspects until the age 40 plus. At that material time females are out of the question as they were kept only for raising family and household affairs. Western education was deliberately denied for youths in fear of them taking over elders’ prominence in the community. Time changes and so everything!
This negative traditional trend hunts youths to date that couldn’t be unassociated with failures of farmer associations in the region. The connection between farmer associations and food security is organizational attitude to acquiring knowledge and skill for positive change and organizational ability brought by internal unity of purpose, interest and responsibility under one roof of vision to produce, distribute and share. By traditional design and suppression aging out farmers are always leaders in emerging farmers organizations since time immemorial. They are the administrators; technical directors and commercial managers in any farmer organization found in the region. Under this dispensation the youths have no chance of bailing out to open development opportunities for themselves and community at large while food security and nutrition shall continue suffering until there is radical changes in the structure and duties and responsibilities of such organizations.
By rough estimation there are over 20 million population of graduate, skilled and unskilled youths in northwest region of Nigeria that are idly living on massive arable land with water reservoirs sufficient enough to support year round agricultural productions for direct consumption, supply local manufacturing industries and for exporting. This will never happen beyond 2030 unless aging out farmers are graciously and tactically phased out of the leadership seats of farmer organizations for gradual replacement with upcoming energetic, knowledge-full, innovative and intelligent male and female youths to manage and control all aspects of farmer organizations across the region.