Presentation by Suresh Babu, International Food policy Research Institute (IFPRI) (March 4, 2020). Read more: http://bit.ly/FutureAgExt

1. Youth Entrepreneurship and
Agricultural Extension?
Suresh Babu
Senior Research Fellow and Head of Capacity Strengthening
IFPRI
Envisioning the Future of Extension, March 4-5, 2020
Washington, DC

2. Outline
• Framework to analyze youth in agribusiness
• Issues relating to youth entrepreneurship and agricultural extension
• Country case studies and insights
❖Bangladesh
❖India
❖Indonesia
❖Nigeria
• Lessons – Programmatic, Institutional, and Policy level
• Concluding remarks

3. Can Youth Entrepreneurship lead to Innovations in
Agricultural Extension?
• Youth in rural areas – problem or solution?
• Migration out of rural areas – out of the country
• 10 years of extension reforms in India
• Private sector in extension – a set of case studies (Syngenta
Foundation)
• Global experiences
• Youth issues became very prominent
• How to effectively use human resources for service delivery and
extension activities?

5. Case study approach to youth entrepreneurship – A
Conceptual Approach
Figure 1: Framework for rural youth empowerment through entrepreneurship

6. Bangladesh

7. Key Insights
• Output aggregation is an entry point
• Bring farmers together to get better prices and assured market
• Facilitation is key to identify the market – extension
• Start by improving product quality
• Guide farmers to increase productivity
• Connect them to input suppliers and seed industry
• Guide youth in aggregation business as this helps in transfer of
innovations
• Invest to continuously engage with youth already in the business

8. India

9. India - Key Insights
• Began with a women Self Help group
• Youth identified and trained in:
❖ Input supply – right timing and right
quality
❖ How to market products in the urban
areas
❖ As demonstration farmers (national youth
farmer award)
• Expansion to other businesses – reduced interest
in agriculture
• When husband found a construction job; interest
in extension waned off
• A formal engagement and incentive to continue to
be the leader would have helped
• Can public – private partnership help?
• How to organize this?

10. Nigeria

11. Nigeria - Key Insights
• Youth training investments by the public sector
• Needs to be followed up by credit and
facilitation to start small rural enterprises
• Private extension could be a career for rural
youth
• Identifying their role in the value chain –
catfish value chain
• Public extension service could facilitate youth
entrepreneurship
• Extension system will require guidance and
direction in their mandate
• Extension system should recognize the role of
youth in the value chain in their program and
policies

13. Programmatic Lessons
• Program scale up must involve youth – what are the opportunities?
• National youth training programs – how are they connected to
technology and innovations?
• National extension programs - involvement of youth?
• Private sector and NGOs can involve youth in their sustainability project
• Transfer facilitation to public sector
• Mentorship programs at the decentralized levels

14. Institutional Lessons
• Public systems of extension and their openness to youth leaders
• How to recruit and train village volunteers?
• Building their technical, people and leadership skills
• How to keep them in the system – what are the incentives?
• Public – private – NGO partnerships – youth could play a key role?
• Lead farmers – can they be jobless graduates in rural areas?
• Eg: Agricultrual Graduate Association of Nigeria

15. Policy Lessons
• National extension policies and the involvement of youth
• National and decentralized strategies
• National resilience strategies and youth
• Multisectoral approach – ministry of youth and sports; ministry of
rural development; ministry of agriculture
• Tracking investment in youth development and skill building
• Agricultural and TVET opportunities need to expand to include
agriculture at the policy level

16. Concluding Remarks
• Global discussion on food systems should focus on youth engagement
• Extension policies and strategies need to explicitly recognize the role
of youth in agriculture and in rural areas
• In which part of the food system can youth play a role?
• How to engage them?
• Extension systems cannot operate in isolation within the Ministry of
agriculture or within the rural areas.
• The key is training youth to become successful social entrepreneurs