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Promoting youth engagement and employment in agriculture and food systems - e-consultation on the Report’s scope, proposed by the HLPE Steering Committee

During its 46th Plenary Session (14 – 18 October 2019), the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) requested its High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) to produce a report entitled “Promoting youth engagement and employment in agriculture and food systems”, to be presented in 2021 (the request is provided below) [1].

The report, which will provide recommendations to the CFS workstream “Promoting youth engagement and employment in agriculture and food systems”, will:

  • Review the opportunities for, and constraining factors to youth engagement and employment in agriculture and food systems, including youth access to:
    1. Knowledge, information and education;
    2. Productive land, natural resources and inputs;
    3. Productive tools, extension, advisory and financial services;
    4. Training, education and mentorship programmes;
    5. Innovation and new technologies;
    6. Markets;
    7. Policy-making processes.
  • Examine aspects related to employment, salaries, and working conditions;
  • Review rules, regulations and policy approaches, including territorial approaches, aimed at addressing the complexity of structural economic, cultural, social and spatial transformations currently taking place globally;
  • Explore the potential of food systems and enhanced rural-urban linkages to provide more and better jobs for women and youth.

To implement this CFS request, the HLPE is launching an open e-consultation to seek views and comments on the following scope and building blocks of the report, outlined below.

 

Please note that in parallel to this scoping consultation, the HLPE is calling for interested experts to candidate to the Project Team for this report. The call for candidature is open until 21 January 2020. Read more here.

Proposed draft Scope of the HLPE Report on “Promoting youth engagement and employment in agriculture and food systems” by the HLPE Steering Committee

Engagement of youth (both women and men) is key in making the transition towards sustainable and healthy agriculture and food systems. It is estimated that more than 2 billion children will be born worldwide between 2015 and 2030 (UN, 2015 [2]). The majority of these children will be in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where agriculture and food systems constitute the largest employer, and where the needs in terms of availability, access and quality of food and nutrition are greatest. There is a large untapped reservoir of employment opportunities in the agri-food sector which is increasingly pinched by significant labour constraints in many areas of the world. Yet, due to limited access to land, natural resources, infrastructure, finance, technology, markets, knowledge, and poor working conditions the sector cannot be considered attractive and sustainable for youth. There is a high incidence of informality, casual labour, underemployment, child labour, forced labour, working poverty, and among the lowest rates of access to social protection and unionisation in the agricultural sector. Quite often, young women, once married, are mostly engaged in farming, often for subsistence, while young men exit the sector in search of other income opportunities and greater autonomy. Discriminatory traditional and cultural norms leave women disadvantaged as regards  access to productive resources, limiting their ability to innovate on their farms. It is then important to better understand aspirations of the youth, differentiated by gender, class, ethnicity and other forms of difference, to enable sustainable food systems.

As the global average age of these farmers approaches 60 years, it is essential to develop systems, policies, and programmes that encourage the engagement of youth in agriculture and food systems and related professions, including research and innovation. These should provide spaces and mechanisms for participation, and opportunities for entrepreneurship. Traditional subsistence agriculture is not attractive to the youth and it is essential to transform agriculture and food systems in a way that is intellectually challenging and economically rewarding. Retaining youth in agriculture also requires improving living standards and quality of services in rural areas and mid-sized town.

Engagement and leadership of young women and men in agriculture and food systems is essential as youth need to be recognized as agents of change and not (only) as receivers of assistance and support. Youth participation in decision making related to agriculture and food systems requires changes to the enabling environment, through the institution of specific mechanisms to allow the voices of youth to be heard; and recognition of the social, economic, cultural and political status of youth, to allow them to fully participate. The legislative and institutional environment influences the respect of young people’s rights, working conditions, job creation and youth engagement. Coherence between sectoral and employment policies and legislation needs to be promoted to ensure that there are no conflicting objectives in different policies, and that policies reinforce one another.

The objectives of this report are to better understand the gender differentiated reasons for the limited engagement of youth in agriculture and food systems, to identify new opportunities for youth to improve their efficiency and sustainability, and to provide recommendations to facilitate their active engagement and employment. These recommendations will be in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and in particular with SDG2, SDG1, SDG8, SDG5, SDG9, and SDG10, and with other global and regional level agreements.

During this e-consultation, the HLPE Steering Committee welcomes your feedback. In particular, you are invited to:

  • Share your comments on the objectives and content of this report as outlined above;
  • Share good practices and successful experiences to improve youth engagement in the governance of agriculture and food systems; to address obstacles hindering youth ability to engage as entrepreneurs, and to generate decent work opportunities for youth in agriculture and food systems, at different scales (from local to global) and by different stakeholders (public, private or civil society), including with respect to legislation and the enabling environment;
  • Share the most recent references that should be considered in this report;
  • Provide feedback on the following questions, identifying any gender issues, to guide the development of the report:
    1. Why is there a need to promote youth engagement and employment in agriculture and food systems? What are the key issues and opportunities?
    2. How do the evolution and transitions of agriculture, food systems and nutrition affect youth engagement and employment? How can agriculture and food systems employment become more attractive for youth, especially considering the rural-urban continuum? What would be needed to improve standards of living and services in rural areas and mid-sized towns, to retain youth and young families?
    3. What governance transformations are necessary to enable and encourage youth participation in agriculture and food systems, and what actions are required to equip youth with the necessary skills and confidence in fully engaging in these decision-making processes?
    4. What are the most promising pathways to transform current agriculture and the food systems in developing countries to make them more attractive to the youth?
    5. What are the best strategies for fully engaging youth, in particular young women, in opportunities to acquire adequate skills and learning opportunities to further develop their knowledge and enable them to be leaders in innovative agriculture and the transformation of food systems?
    6. What are the most appropriate policies to remove obstacles to empower youth initiate and/or upscale activities in agriculture and related services, in the food supply chain, in agroecology, and in the food environment, as well as in nutrition and innovation, in accordance to their skills, aspirations, assets and contexts?
    7. What are the most appropriate policies and initiatives to facilitate the education-to-labour market transition and youth recruitment and retention in agriculture and food systems’ related activities? What nodes and activities in supply chains have the highest potential for generating decent jobs for youth? What new types of training are needed foster more agroecological approaches to farming?
    8. What is the extent of wage discrepancies against youth and women in agriculture and food systems, and what are some successful experiences in removing such wage differentials?
    9. What data is necessary to support policy development to enhance youth engagement and employment, and to create awareness of the specific needs, vulnerabilities and opportunities of disadvantaged youth?
 

[1] The request for HLPE Report # 16 is extracted from the CFS 46 document “CFS Multi-year programme of work 2020-2023” (Ref: CFS 2019/46/7), available at http://www.fao.org/3/na703en/na703en.pdf

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As a Coordinator of the University of Lagos Organic Demonstration Farm, I have come to realize that over 90% of the students who actively participate in the farm practical do so in order to earn mark to boost their grades and not with for interest for career development. The lack of motivation stems from non automation of the current farm infrastructure (manual tilling watering, weeding etc), degraded soil resulted from prolong use of synthetic input, insufficient access to organic input and unavailability of simple test kits that can aid practical learning and research among others. These challenges have huge impact on students’ perception and behavior and further close their understanding about the opportunities that fly around farming activities.

One of the main issues agriculture currently faces worldwide is one of perception. Be that the perception of agriculture as a backward industry where one only gets involved in it if you have no other options or of agriculture destroying the environment and one of the main causes of climate change.

These perceptions need to change. This change will have to happen at a young age and children must be enabled to see what an exciting prospect it is to be involved in agriculture. 

Attached is a Nuffield report looking at just this issue, it was written from an Irish perspective but it could easily be adjusted for any region or country. If it can be ensured that this generation of children grow up with an appreciation, interest and even an excitement around the possibilities that agriculture offers them, then the world will reap the benefits in the future.

See the attachments:

Tapera Chivhaka

UNISA
South Africa

All African countries are talking land redistribution. This is the right time to seriously consider how the Youth and woman are involved. Not everyone should go into farming. Those Youth that has a sort of qualification or background in Agriculture should be considered. This indicates that Agriculture is seriously considered as carrier. We should avoid the situation which happened in Zimbabwe where land was distributed to politicians. Politicians should be politicians. Farmers should be farmers!

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.    

 

Promoting youth engagement and employment in agriculture and food system

From the academic and practical points of view, youth, who are the majority of most developing nations’ populations, are not usually attracted to taking agriculture as a profession, career, or enterprise.

From the developing nations' perspective, the main reasons identified are i. Agriculture is perceived and practiced as males’ enterprise, although females are the majority of the workforce; ii. The use of manual tools, as well as the unattractive nature of farming; and iii. Its low profitability; agriculture is associated with poverty among the youth.

Hence, to promote youth’s engagement and employment in agriculture, there must be i. conscious mainstreaming of gender equity principles and ICT into the teaching, research, service provision, and practice of agriculture at all levels; ii. Development of gender-responsive low cost and available technologies to ease activities along the Agriculture value chain; iii. Youth empowerment and teaching agriculture as a profit-oriented subject at all levels; and v. formulation and implementation of gender-responsive policies at all levels.

(Olanike Deji, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria)

Youth engagement and employment in agriculture and food system can be effectively promoted from curricula and practical aspects. Youth, who are the majority of most developing nations’ populations, are not attracted to taking agriculture as a profession nor as an entrepreneur or career.

From the perspectives and experience in most developing countries, the main reasons identified are i. Agriculture is perceived and practiced as males’ enterprise, although females are the majority of the workforce; ii. The use of manual tools, as well as the unattractive nature of farming; and iii. Its low profitability; agriculture is associated with poverty among the youth.

Hence, to promote youth’s engagement and employment in agriculture, there must be i. conscious mainstreaming of gender and ICT into the teaching, research, service provision, and practice of agriculture at all levels; ii. Development of gender-responsive low cost and available technologies to ease activities along the Agriculture value chain; iii. Youth empowerment and the teaching of agriculture as a profit-oriented subject at all levels; and v. formulation and implementation of gender-responsive policies at all levels. (Olanike Deji, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria.

 

This relates to youth access to extension &  advisory services

In 2013, I published a blog, "Youth: Potential Target for Agricultural Extension" , wherein, I emphasised reorineting extension services keeping youth as potential target. Youth are often more willing to adopt new ideas and technologies compared older generation of farmers,  therefore, agricultural extension services should target youth to transform agriculture.Young farmers often have greater capacity for innovation, imagination, initiative and entrepreneurship than older adults and these characteristics should be effectively harnessed by extension services to provide better livelihood opportunities for youth in agriculture. In India, a number of programmes, initiatives have been taken to engage youth.

Please visit my blog at

https://www.aesanetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/AESA-BLOG-10.pdf

 

When we conduct surveys, often we consult & take into account the views of Head of household, who is generally male & aged.This excludes the young & women who too has stake in agriculture, if not much now but surely they are the future farmers. Once we get their views on the problems and constraints and how they can be supported, then only we can develop policies which support their constructive engagments in agriculture, help them retaining in rural areas to avoid migrating to cities. Youth often find it exciting to work on value chains, rather than just primary production of agricultural commodities. In our youth mentoring programme, we found youth were more excited meeting agripreneurs compared to farmers doing routine farming activities. The agripreneurs were adding value to primary farm products by processing,  packaging and handling marketing even online selling farm products. Many youth are now organizing themselves as Farmer producer groups and enjoy marketing farm products alongside producing farm commodities innovatively. There is need to bring changes in school curriculums to ignite young minds on modern farming practices including export orientations, we need more youth mentoring programmes, handholding to establish them into agribusinesses. We are currently supporting agri-startups, wherein, many innovative ideas by youths are being incubated in research institutions and universites. Young and women are taking lot of interest in agriventures, which gives positive signals for farming sector. Also, many youths with urban background, are now taking up agriculture, often giving up their high profile jobs. These are new role models for rural youths.  Agriculture sector needs more glamour, we have to make it attractive to youth.

https://ypard.net/2017-09-11/make-agriculture-%E2%80%98cool%E2%80%99-yo…

https://ypard.net/testimonials/mentoring-rural-youth-make-agriculture-a…

Here are some brief comments on promoting the youth's active participation in agriculture and food systems:

1. Designing agriculture training programs/offerings (e.g. agribusiness) and training methods (for instance through ICT, community-based, industry-informed, mentorship, etc) that are appropriate to the youth.

2. Involving key stakeholders (such as parents, local communities, etc) and not just students.

3. Pursuing value-addition in the food and agriculture value-chain.

4. Development of ICT-based innovations and interventions for agriculture and food security (for instance: via mobile technologies, Internet-of-Things, drones, etc).

5. Promoting youth's access to credit for agriculture and food security projects, activities and businesses.

6. Promoting youth's access to natural resources (e.g. land), agricultural inputs and markets for agriculture and food security projects, activities and businesses.

7. Creating social and support networks through which the youth can share information and access services.

  • Share your comments on the objectives and content of this report as outlined above;

These objectives are very broad and not specified for a different level (local, regional, or international)

These objectives should include enhancement and attraction for working in agriculture and food system.

These objectives should include economic aspect clearly.

  • Share good practices and successful experiences to improve youth engagement in the governance of agriculture and food systems; to address obstacles hindering youth ability to engage as entrepreneurs, and to generate decent work opportunities for youth in agriculture and food systems, at different scales (from local to global) and by different stakeholders (public, private or civil society), including with respect to legislation and the enabling environment;

1st of all, these can be achieved through different aspects:

  1. Education (Agriculture Technical colleges / Institutes).
  2. Long term loan OR just subsidies.
  3. Joined SME’s (small enterprises).
  4. Agriculture Society.
  5. Land tenure for the graduated youth.
  6. Guaranteed markets (locally, regionally & internationally)
  7. Farm business School
  8. Maps & data base (soil, land, water, land suitability, investment …etc.)

Here in Oman we have a very good and successful practice, which is Agriculture Society in different region of Oman for a different crop.

  • Share the most recent references that should be considered in this report;

I don’t have it, but we can add here many case studies from different countries (it’s under formulation)

  • Provide feedback on the following questions, identifying any gender issues, to guide the development of the report:
    1. Why is there a need to promote youth engagement and employment in agriculture and food systems? What are the key issues and opportunities?
  • To enhance the agriculture and food system by new high tech / pro. / apps. through youth.
  • To supply the markets of high value crops and their manufactured food.
  • To strengthen the supply chain & logistics of markets locally/regionally/internationally.
  • Reduce the un-employee ratio in the countries.
  • Reduce indirectly the crop damage and waste food.
  • Change livelihood of new generation
  • Family security and safety.
  • Food security for their future.
  1. How do the evolution and transitions of agriculture, food systems and nutrition affect youth engagement and employment? How can agriculture and food systems employment become more attractive for youth, especially considering the rural-urban continuum? What would be needed to improve standards of living and services in rural areas and mid-sized towns, to retain youth and young families?

These can be achieved by minimize by:

  • Reconsider the Land Use in rural areas based on agricultural land suitability.
  • Call for local / regional / international agriculture investments.
  • Build up the infrastructure (roads, telecommunication, markets…etc.) for the agriculture business.
  1. What governance transformations are necessary to enable and encourage youth participation in agriculture and food systems, and what actions are required to equip youth with the necessary skills and confidence in fully engaging in these decision-making processes?
  • Market
  • Education (college level at least)
  • Training
  • Loan / subsidies
  • Logistic
  • Involve the youth farmers in agriculture and food exhibitions.
  1. What are the most promising pathways to transform current agriculture and the food systems in developing countries to make them more attractive to the youth?

Soil maps, investment maps and data base THEN visibility studies THEN SME’s with government support THEN farming THEN communication (local, regional, international, markets) THEN logistic companies sustainability

  1. What are the best strategies for fully engaging youth, in particular young women, in opportunities to acquire adequate skills and learning opportunities to further develop their knowledge and enable them to be leaders in innovative agriculture and the transformation of food systems?

Training, Facilities, SME’s, Markets

  1. What are the most appropriate policies to remove obstacles to empower youth initiate and/or upscale activities in agriculture and related services, in the food supply chain, in agro ecology, and in the food environment, as well as in nutrition and innovation, in accordance to their skills, aspirations, assets and contexts?
  • Reduce or Remove taxes for a certain year
  • Give them a loan with very low interest
  • Well and long term training program (farming, pest treatment, irrigation, farming business …. etc)
  • Open a guaranteed market for their products
  1. What are the most appropriate policies and initiatives to facilitate the education-to-labour market transition and youth recruitment and retention in agriculture and food systems’ related activities?

Government and/or organizations must give an attention to build up a system of agriculture technical colleges (irrigation system insulation, farming system technique, farm business school, livestock related issue …. etc)

  • What nodes and activities in supply chains have the highest potential for generating decent jobs for youth? Logistic of agriculture and livestock products.
  • Import/export businesses.
  • Markets
  • Integrated Agricultural Project (plant / livestock)

What new types of training are needed foster more agro ecological approaches to farming?

  • Modern or high tech agriculture (integrated hydroponic and aquaponics system).
  • Farm business school
  • How to build up an agriculture society.
  1. What is the extent of wage discrepancies against youth and women in agriculture and food systems, and what are some successful experiences in removing such wage differentials?
  • 1st part: the discrepancies in this issue depending on countries development and counties GDP.
  • 2nd part: we can remove these differences by involving the youth farmer’s (both gender) as partners and shareholders in the agricultural project
  1. What data is necessary to support policy development to enhance youth engagement and employment, and to create awareness of the specific needs, vulnerabilities and opportunities of disadvantaged youth?

On country level we need the following:

  1. Total population
  2. Gender ratio
  3. Gender ration on the base of different age
  4. Gender qualification
  5. Population density and distribution map
  6. Investment map
  7. Land use map
  8. Land suitability map
  9. Soil & water maps
  10. Integrated studies of the targeted areas for the agriculture and food systems.
  11. Local, regional & international markets.
  12. Agricultural education data.
  13. Training / Agriculture extension / Farming business school data