1. Chair NIABI 2112 Panel on
Opportunities for youth in agriculture
and Grassroots Incubation
17.00 – 18.30 hrs February 7, 2012,
New Delhi, India
Ralph von Kaufmann
UniBRAIN Facility Coordinator
Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa
AgBIT - Zambia CAF - Mali CURAD - Uganda CCLEARr - Ghana IDPA - Uganda SVCDC - Kenya

2. Opportunities for youth in agriculture
and Grassroots Incubation
CONTENT

3. Opportunities for youth in agriculture
and Grassroots Incubation
Rationale: Africa cannot afford to miss its
demographic bonus
• Namanga Ngongi
African leaders and heads of state are concerned about the the role of
young people and their contribution to long-term development in Africa.
Given the youthful face driving the so-called ―Arab Spring,‖ the focus
on young people at the annual summit of Africa’s leaders is both timely
and fitting.
There are more young people in Africa than ever before—over two-
thirds of Africa’s one billion people are under the age of 30.
Despite increased migration to the cities, most of Africa’s young people
still live in rural areas.

4. Opportunities for youth in agriculture
and Grassroots Incubation
Rationale: Africa cannot afford to miss its
demographic bonus
• Namanga Ngongi
And most of them, whether rural or urban, are unemployed.
• To build a continent where people can work and live with a degree of
prosperity, we must invest more resources in the land -- and in the
young who live there.
• Together, these are Africa’s greatest assets.
Seven out of ten Africans earn their living by farming. It is the
backbone of most of our economies.
• The market for African staple foods like maize, milk, meat, banana,
sorghum, rice and millet is estimated at over USD$150 billion a year.
This market is far larger than the export market for internationally
traded African cash crops like coffee, tea, and flowers.

5. Opportunities for youth in agriculture
and Grassroots Incubation
Rationale: Africa cannot afford to miss its
demographic bonus
• Namanga Ngongi
Yet, even at this decisions and policy processes for agriculture in
Africa as they are the generation that will have to ensure that the
continent’s growing population is fed.

6. Opportunities for youth in agriculture
and Grassroots Incubation
Rationale: Africa cannot afford to miss its
demographic bonus
Lindiwe Majele Sibanda heads the Food, Agriculture and Natural
Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN).
• As efforts are being made to ―re-brand‖ Africa to other parts of the
world, African leaders have an opportunity to ―re-brand‖ agriculture
across the continent, particularly for our youth.
To make agriculture attractive to the young, it needs greater
resources—for education, for infrastructure, for improving the business
environment for agriculture in ways that will raise incomes and expand
the agricultural value chain.
The viability of African agriculture relies on the action of people at all
levels.
• But Africa’s leaders should do more to spur private-sector participation
in farms of different sizes as well as in agro-processing and support
services such as finance and machinery-rental services.

7. Opportunities for youth in agriculture
and Grassroots Incubation
Rationale: Africa cannot afford to miss its
demographic bonus
Lindiwe Majele Sibanda heads the Food, Agriculture and Natural
Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN).
• One key need is investment in higher education—not just for the
agricultural sciences, but for training in business, marketing, finance,
policymaking and engineering, to create new generations of
professionals who can build Africa’s agro-industrial capacity.
• This should not be limited to the tertiary level but should include a
major focus on technical institutes that produce middle level
technicians.
We must also invest in transport and ICT infrastructure to enhance the
competitiveness of African agriculture and build trade across the
continent.

8. Opportunities for youth in agriculture
and Grassroots Incubation
Rationale: Africa cannot afford to miss its
demographic bonus
Lindiwe Majele Sibanda heads the Food, Agriculture and Natural
Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN).
• The feeding of Africa is a huge market opportunity; one that can create
millions of badly needed jobs.
African leaders should also start looking at agriculture as a business
and farmers as small businessmen (and businesswomen).
• All this will be possible only if African governments put in place policies
and regulations as well as stable policy and macroeconomic
environment to improve the business environment for more private
sector participation in the agricultural value chain including input
supply, medium and large commercial farming, agro-processing and
support services such as finance and machinery rental services.

9. Opportunities for youth in agriculture
and Grassroots Incubation
Rationale: Africa cannot afford to miss its
demographic bonus
Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, Executive Secretary of the Agency of NEPAD
and former Prime Minister of Niger: "Engaging African Youth in
agriculture so it won't become a phenomenal bomb"
• Nowadays, more and more African countries are investing 10% or
more of their budgets in agriculture. This will improve further in the
coming decade, thanks to the inexorable generational succession
politics.

10. For more information visit:
www.fara-africa.org/our projects/unibrain
THANK YOU