Youth in Agriculture

Background

Agriculture plays a significant role in achieving global food and nutrition security, increasing economic growth, and attaining environmental sustainability. Representing close to 40% of the global workforce, agriculture is the world’s largest provider of jobs, employing over 1.3 billion people. To transform agriculture into a more productive, sustainable, competitive, and efficient sector, demands modern knowledge and skill transfer to develop talent in agriculture. It means up-skilling and re-tooling of the current agricultural workforce. It means retaining people with skills. It means attracting new personnel and expanding the range of career opportunities available in the agriculture-food-nutrition-environment nexus. Most importantly, it means creating incentives and campaigns that encourage young people to see agriculture as a one of the best options for a career choice.

2019

CFS46

Part 2: Youth and the CFS Multi-Year Programme of Work 2020-2023
Youth delegates kicked off this item by discussing the MYPoW, especially the proposed “youth”-themed workstream, “Putting youth at the centre: engaging youth in FSN policies and practices; and promoting (rural) decent jobs for youth in agriculture and food systems.” They also put forward ideas on how a youth lens can be mainstreamed across the other proposed workstreams.

Part 3: Youth and CFS policy work
The session explored the question – “How can youth support the uptake of existing and future CFS policy recommendations and guidelines?” What actions and steps can be taken by government and other actors to ensure that youth are involved and engaged in food security and nutrition policy-making in their national context?

Ambassador Hans offered the seat of the Netherlands to be taken by youth delegates to deliver a statement during the MYPoW plenary session. Tiare Boyes (@WestCoastTiare), Commercial Fisher from Canada, took the floor and delivered her statement on behalf of the youth.
The CFS46 Youth Special Event summary prepared by the youth delegates may be accessed here: http://www.fao.org/cfs/home/plenary/cfs46/en/

IAFN is already thinking about how to continue meaningfully engaging young agricultural leaders in 2019 and beyond. Current events include:

International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Governing Council Meetings, February 14-15, Rome, Italy: We will be present at the IFAD Governing Council meetings and will coordinate a special event on access of young people to finance.  

2018

Nuffield International Contemporary Scholars Conference, March 5-11, Netherlands: The IAFN Secretariat attended Nuffield’s Contemporary Scholars Conference, in part to encourage the Scholars to engage with IAFN in the context of upcoming FAO conferences, including CFS45 and Regional Biotech Meetings. 

CFS45: At the Committee on World Food Security 2018 (CFS45), the Private Sector Mechanism (PSM) hosted our popular annual event, the High Level Dinner, the theme of which was “Youth in Agriculture.” The Dinner was structured to celebrate accomplishments of diverse young agriculture leaders and lead guests in productive discussion on how to engage, attract, and retain youth in ag. 

2017

2017 marked a year filled with exciting initiatives for youth in agriculture via IAFN. Highlights include: 

Young Agricultural Leaders at FAO Regional Biotech Conferences: IAFN is proud to have supported a diverse group of private sector actors, including several young farmers and agripreneurs, to attend FAO Regional Meetings on Agricultural Biotechnologies in Sustainable Food Systems and Nutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa (November) and another in Asia (September). Read about attendees’ experiences here. 

Youth in Ag Luncheon at the High-Level Political Forum: On July 13th, in the context of HLPF, IAFN hosted the Agriculture and Food Day, the goal of which was raise awareness of the critical need for investment in SDG2. The day included a focused plenary session, a series of roundtable discussions on interlinkages of the SDGs, and a dynamic luncheon featuring youth in agriculture. Read more about it here. 

Past events & Initiatives

CFS42: Given the critical need to attract and train a new generation of farmers, farm leaders, agribusiness workers and managers, the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) held a special event on October 15th, 2015, in Rome on “Developing the knowledge, skills and talent of youth to further food security and nutrition”. This interactive discussion surrounded lessons learned and potential policy implications on how to develop the knowledge, skills and talent of youth. Hlami Ngwenya of the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS) was there to represent the Private Sector Mechanism on the panel.

Youth were also encouraged to pitch their ideas for making agriculture more attractive to young talent through a new initiative, the CFS 42 Youth for Food Security and Nutrition (Y4FSN) Idea Incubator.

A Call to Action: A coalition of interested partners has brought in front of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) a call to action to define strategies for improving talent development systems in agriculture.

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Side Event at the 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development: Talent Development in Agriculture – Growing Ambitions for Food