The results of different studies about sustainable agriculture, local food systems, and the role that young people play show that, in spite of differences in terms of ethnicity, race, sex, geographic location or simply the country where they live, young people all over the world share opinions and concerns.

A number of common perceptions about agriculture and the environment can be found among young people:

• A great apprehension regarding the environmental problems that they will inherit. Youth around the world are aware of the state of the environment and are concerned about the problems they face and will face as producers, consumers and caretakers of the planet. Concern over issues such as air, water and soil pollution can sometimes make them feel pessimistic and helpless;
• An overwhelming support for the principles of sustainable agriculture and local food systems. In many countries, in both the developed and in the developing world, youth support and embrace sustainable farming practices, whether they have had any formal training, experience or exposure to these approaches or not. They seem to have an innate ability to appreciate the importance of sustainable methods of production. The majority recognises the importance of looking at our lifestyles and the sources of the goods we use as an important step towards solving environmental problems;
• An understanding that changes in labour and management practices need to be made at the farm level. Youth recognise that conventional, high-input farming may generate high yields for the short term, but can destroy the land over time. They understand the need to change labour and management practices.

Different reports highlight the shared concerns of global youth: they understand that they are inheriting environmental problems and they know about the benefits of sustainable agriculture. Isn’t it high time they participate more actively in the discussions, programmes and efforts promoting sustainable agriculture?

Rural youth and agriculture

But the interest of youth in agriculture has been declining, and one can only imagine this trend continuing. While most developing countries are still experiencing high population growth rates, the

youth are migrating in significant numbers to urban areas. This is because of a lack of jobs and opportunities in rural areas, and a view that working in farming is low status and does not offer good

future prospects.

Urban migration results in overcrowding in cities, inequitably divided resources, and a heavier workload for those who remain active in agriculture in the countryside. And those who want to remain in their rural hometowns and make a living in farming can face many difficulties.

Young people play an important role in all family farms. But education or training programmes are not always readily available, technologies are not accessible, inputs may be scarce, and soils may be of poor quality.

Further, marketing channels are poorly developed. The lack of rural development services frequently leads to people employing farming techniques that further degrade the environment, and which result in lower yields and lower incomes.

Better services and education, especially designed for the rural areas, can contribute to increasing food production and to higher profits, but comprehensive efforts are needed. Modern Information and Communication Tools (ICTs) can be an important way of addressing this, as we are already seeing in many countries.

Youth as consumers

Yet young people also demand products and, in the near future, they will be the world’s largest group of consumers. As such, young people can play another key role: as consumers, a group that is already recognised as a potential driving force for change in our food (and other) systems. Change will not take place if consumers do not demand sustainably produced foods.

A large portion of the global population is made up of youth: nearly one fifth of all the earth’s inhabitants are between the ages of 15 and 24 years old. But youth are becoming less connected with their food, often making little or no association between the food that they eat and the place where it was produced. They may not see beyond the store or market, nor make the connection between the food they are eating and the efforts made by farmers to grow it.

This growing “disconnection” with agriculture implies an uncertain future for sustainably produced foods. It is important to make the link between food and agriculture visible again, and help increase the recognition given to farmers. The article on Youth and the Slow Food movement in this issue provides an example of the role youth can play.

The importance of education

The key to this lies in highlighting – and sharing – the benefits of an agriculture that nurtures both people and the planet. Educational programs can be used to teach youth about food choices, sustainability, local agriculture and land use. But more than “telling” them how things are and what to think, such programs need to be developed from the existing perceptions that youth have about farming, food production and sustainable agriculture, and the contributions they are already making.

Numerous studies have shown that young people are already involved in many ways and take on many responsibilities. Others indicate that youth can easily recognize that a change towards a more sustainable agriculture means making changes at the farm level. Developing educational initiatives that bring about these management changes will also empower youth.

The picture of youth’s participation in agriculture and the “connection” they have with their food is not bleak, but represents a great opportunity. The development of learning programmes can be a powerful starting point for making youth more aware about sustainable agriculture and the world’s food systems. Building on what young people think and do, these programmes can then be linked to programmes that improve access to credit, extension services and practical education about sustainable production techniques, helping develop an “enabling environment”.

There are exciting opportunities for engaging youth, and this can have enormous benefits. It is up to us, the current stewards of the earth, to engage and inspire our youth, as future consumers and producers, to participate (even more) in the development of sustainable agriculture.

Text: Laura Anne Sanagorski

The post The starting point: Youth’s perceptions about sustainable agriculture appeared first on Ileia.

Does it mean that within the next few decades farming as a livelihood will cease to exist, and that all agricultural activity will be concentrated in highly mechanised, large scale entreprises, with as little human labour involved as possible? How sustainable is that option?

One of the things lacking in today’s agriculture is imagination. Today’s generation of farmers, teachers, agricultural scientists, policymakers and also the media have collectively failed to trigger the imagination of young generations. “Yes, there are major challenges, farming is not an easy or glamourous option, BUT there are ways of doing agriculture in a sustainable and rewarding manner”. This could have been their message, but who has been able to give it hands and feet? We heard only a few concrete positive examples from you, dear readers!

Yet, in this issue of Farming Matters we see glimpses of hope. Recently I landed up in the “heartland of the Indonesian Green Revolution”. I met a lively group of junior high school students participating in a four months intensive course on organic paddy cultivation. They shared their hopes for a better agriculture. “But”, they told me, “we need magazines like Farming Matters that can show us how to make our hopes a reality. Our parents have lost touch with agriculture and therefore we need to re-learn what they forgot, and connect with other sources of knowledge.”

In a similar vein, a Kenyan teacher told me about the Maarifa centre he had set up in his native village. This centre, which houses a few computers and has internet connectivity, is making all the difference for the local youth. They now easily connect with a much larger world of knowledge on agriculture. It helps them to re-value agriculture and discover new ways of making agriculture profitable and sustainable. The teacher himself confided that his decision to return from Nairobi to his native village was one of the best things he did in his life.

Text: Edith van Walsum, director ILEIA

The post Imagine… appeared first on Ileia.

Although researchers and analysts are showing that deforestation rates have decreased sharply in recent years, we feel that the situation is not as good as the figures that they present would indicate.

First, because they focus on regions like the Amazon rainforest, paying less attention to other areas where the cultivation of soybeans or sugarcane, for example, is on the rise. Industrial agriculture is expanding in order to remain competitive, and this growth does not consider environmental concerns. But the biggest worry today is that many are pushing for changes in the existing legislation – especially those laws and regulations which have proved to be effective.

The Brazilian Forest Code has served as a model for legislation in many countries. Although it has undergone several modifications since it was signed in 1934, it is still seen as the pillar of the country’s environmental legislation, and has helped protect – even if not completely – the country’s tropical and sub-tropical forests. Over the past decade, however, the Brazilian agribusiness sector and their representatives in Congress have increasingly attacked the existing limits on deforestation, complaining about the possibilities of being penalised for “environmental crimes”. Their main argument is that the existing environmental legislation is holding back the development of the country’s agriculture sector.

A proposed new code was approved by a parliamentary commission in 2010, and Congress will debate its approval in the coming weeks. This proposal has already been criticised by researchers, farmers’ and civil society organisations – all of whom question the economic and political interests behind these proposed changes to the Forest Code, and the possible environmental and social impacts that may occur as a result of them. This new legislative proposal “forgives” all deforestation which occurred before 2008, releasing those who have destroyed the forests from any obligation to restore them. It also reduces the total number of Permanent Preservation Areas in the country. This will have serious consequences. On the one hand, it will eliminate any sense of responsibility or accountability. On the other hand, it is an invitation to deforesting new areas, something which will generate a new wave of environmental destruction, with immeasurable impacts.

It is clear that, once again, politicians and policy makers are forgetting that future generations will depend on the natural resources, biodiversity and environmental services provided by our forests. It is worth fighting so that nonsensical proposals such as this one are not approved.

Text: Francisco Roberto Caporal

Francisco Roberto Caporal lectures at the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco, Brazil. He is also President of the Brazilian Association of Agroecology.

The post Opinion: Worth fighting for appeared first on Ileia.

Communication is crucial in human interactions. The use of social media has become widespread, especially among young people. Modern communication tools can also be used to make agriculture more appealing and more effective.

Though neglected for a long time, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are now seen as an important tool for development, especially in Africa. There are many available options, and different factors need to be considered in selecting the most appropriate and effective tool or medium for communication.

According to Francois Laureys, the West Africa Programme Manager at the International Institute of Communication for Development (IICD), the most important factor is the type of information to be sent out: “In Africa, radio is still the cheapest and most efficient tool for spreading messages about a broad range of issues, like farming, democracy or lifestyle. By building in feedback-loops via the internet or telephone, it can also offer two-way communication.”

Using ICTs in farming, for example for spreading information about practices and market prices for agricultural products, requires other tools like mobile phones or computers. But in many parts of Africa, mobile phones are not (yet) widely used to support farming: most farmers who have mobile phones only use them as a social communication tool. Part of the problem is that there are still practical problems in the use of ICTs on a large scale: large areas of the continent are still not connected, and the communication costs are very high: an average person in Africa pays (relatively) ten times more for mobile communication than somebody in Europe. Practical ICT applications for farming are still limited. And illiteracy is still widespread, especially among the elder generation, which limits the full use of digital ICTs. But, according to Mr Laureys, there is a huge potential for using visual multimedia, such as video and photography, for training and learning about agriculture.

Container knowledge

ILEIA’s Kenyan partner in the AgriCultures Network, the Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN), has been promoting Maarifa centres (Kiswahili for “knowledge”) for the last five years. These are housed in recycled sea containers that have internet access and where the staff provides different services. They serve as valuable information hubs in remote areas, helping provide farmers and pastoralists with information on new agriculture and animal husbandry technologies, promoting their adoption and thereby improving the livelihoods of poor communities.

A typical Maarifa centre contains a small library of publications, CD ROMs, videos, DVDs, and five or more computers with broadband internet connectivity. Each Maarifa centre is managed by a field officer, a young woman or man with interest and training in information management of agriculture.

A young volunteer from the community, known as a Community Knowledge Facilitator (CKF), supports the field officer in running the centre. One key task is to ensure that everybody who visits the centre is well served, irrespective of their level of literacy. Although open to all villagers, the Maarifa centres make special efforts to engage the youth in learning about and using ICTs to search for agricultural information and for their broader communication needs.

The establishment of a Maarifa Centre is celebrated with an open day, bringing together the neighbouring communities, including representatives from the local government departments and civil organisations, community groups, schools, and the general public. An advisory committee, formed by the local community, co-ordinates the outreach activities around each centre, and each centre has a community focal group attached to it. This group will include some infomediaries with some expertise in extension. They are instrumental in supporting the field officers to package the information so that it is accessible to farmers. There are currently fourteen Maarifa centres; eight in Kenya, four in Uganda and two in Tanzania. Three of the centres in Uganda have only recently been opened, near the towns of Gulu and Moyo. In February 2011 one additional centre started near the Kenyan town of Elwak.

Information experts

John Njue is the field officer at the Maarifa Centre at Kyuso, a dry part of eastern Kenya, where the centre “acts as a referral point for people interested in developmental content. The district does not have any community library and therefore students of agribusiness, crop production and horticulture come to the centre for reference.” One of his tasks, after learning users’ information needs, “is to repackage the available information. In November 2010, for example, many farmers sought information on indigenous poultry keeping after weather anomalies related to La Niña were predicted. Many young people wanted to raise poultry as an alternative farming enterprise”. A year earlier, he helped many of the farmers who came to the centre looking for information on non-chemical pest management. Many women also come to the Maarifa centre: given the time constraints they face, many prefer to borrow i-Pods, with which they watch best practices carried out in other areas.

But John Njue is not directly involved in any agricultural enterprise. “I admire farming, but not the kind our forefathers practised. The reason why I don’t farm is because my parents and neighbours would not listen to my views about the need to practice more modern farming techniques, and trying to farm as a business.” According to him, most young people don’t engage in agriculture because of a lack of support from the people around them. He feels that it would be beneficial if the government employed young agricultural extension officers. This would make it easier to communicate to young farmers and help them start an agricultural business, rather than continuing to see and practice farming as a subsistence activity. He also observes that many extension officers do not use modern technologies in their training, and thinks that this is a deterrent to youth participation.

Samuel Nzioka is the newly appointed field officer at the Maarifa Centre in Nguruman, a very remote village in the south of Kenya’s Rift Valley Province. He has a BSc degree in agriculture and strongly believes that ICTs can help promote agricultural production: “ICTs can be used to document what the farmers are doing in one region. This information can be shared through CD ROMs, short videos and pictures.”He is also positive about Sokopepe, an application piloted by ALIN in order to “link farmers and agri-cultural commodities through an online mobile phone and an internet based marketing portal”. A youth group in Nguruman was trained in the use of ICTs and have developed their own blog through which they’re able to share what they are doing.

ICTs for organisation

ICT heroes, busy internet women
 
Estelle Akofio-Sowah is Google’s country manager in Ghana. She attended the “Fill the Gap” conference organised by Hivos and IICD in Amsterdam in January, where she said that smart phones will soon be the main source of internet access in Africa.
 
Mobile phones are already very significant communication tools, and prices for third generation digital technology are expected to drop significantly. But online content still needs to be developed. So there is much work for African web developers in making online services relevant to the local context and language.
 
Internet offers many opportunities for women, she says, especially for those who overcome their fears about technology and who dare to use their “natural flair” in this male-dominated sector. She highlighted the work of two heroines of the African digital world, Esi Cleland and Florence Toffa, whose work is helping AFROCHIC and the Word Wide Web Foundation reach their objectives.

Samuel Nzioka thinks that there are a number of ways in which agriculture could be made far more appealing to young people: by giving them grants to help them start farming; by linking them with markets for agricultural produce; by setting up local processing plants for value-addition and employment; by training them on best farming practices to achieve higher yields and by organising exchange-visits to learn from others. ICTs can be useful in all these cases.

Francois Laureys has seen the effects in Mali, where IICD supported a women’s association for producing and marketing shea butter. Three computers, some solar panels, two photo-cameras and one video-camera permitted the women to present their products on a website. The use of computers, coupled with management and marketing tools, helped raise production levels and improved sales and revenues. The women also managed to strengthen their organisation, with better accountancy procedures and reports.

But Mr Laureys also warns against too much optimism: “Having a website and being provided with market information is not enough to help the individual farmer get out of the poverty trap. A certain level of organisation is needed.” That’s why better results are seen when working with farmers’ associations and interest groups. The shea butter womens’ organisation has shown many positive results in Mali, and the Maarifa centres are playing an important role in strengthening and connecting rural organisations in remote areas of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. More than other villagers, young people are contributing to this.

Text: Anthony Mugo and Mireille Vermeulen

Anthony Mugo works as Programme Manager at the Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN). Mireille Vermeulen is part of the Farming Matters editorial team.

The post The many possibilities of ICTs in African agriculture appeared first on Ileia.

If there is one thing that the world food crisis has shown us it is that heavily relying on global food markets can be dangerous – especially for the urban areas and where households rely on imported food.

This is a strong argument in favour of strengthening local and regional food systems. These are characterised by fewer intermediaries, lower transportation costs and more personal forms of exchange, resulting in less risky transactions.

Producers and consumers can exert a greater degree of control, allowing for quantities and prices to be negotiated locally, and for more value to remain within the region. Moreover, proponents of regional food systems argue that this contributes to increased food security, benefits the environment and increases the autonomy of farmers.

Regional food systems, however, run against the dominant paradigm that sees global markets and modern technologies as the way forward in agriculture. And they also run against another paradigm: one that considers global food security mainly in terms of the quantity of food available. But addressing hunger and malnutrition is not just about calories. It is about the quality of the diet, which inherently means variety. In many parts of the world, regional food systems used to provide a large variety of local grains, tubers, pulses, green leaves, wild fruits and berries, meat and fish. Today, much of that diversity has gone.

We invite you to share your experiences in strengthening local and regional food systems. How to create the conditions that can support their development? What role can farmers, consumers, farmer organisations, the private sector, field technicians, government programmes and the media play to (re)create regional food systems? How do they contribute to improved food and nutrition security? We will examine initiatives taking place and ask what farmers and consumers think about them and what lessons we can draw from them.

We welcome your suggestions and contributions as articles, photographs, contacts of people you think have expertise in this area or ideas for other topics you think we should address. Please write to Jorge Chavez-Tafur, editor, before June 1st, 2011. E-mail j.chavez-tafur@ileia.org

The post Call for contributions: Regional food systems appeared first on Ileia.

Miet Chielens, one of its Programme Officers, explains that the organisation “aspires to give disadvantaged and marginalised children in developing countries a chance to build a better future for themselves and their society”. What distinguishes Edukans from other NGOs is its exclusive focus on education, which it sees as “the most efficient investment for international co-operation, because when individuals get the opportunity to learn basic life and literacy skills, economies grow faster and poverty rates decline”.

Many NGOs share the aim of contributing to the development of knowledge and skills in developing countries. But Edukans’ objective is twofold: besides promoting the education of marginalised children, it also aims to improve the Dutch education system. This twofold objective is exemplified by the World Teacher Project (WTP), a two-year pilot project that was launched by Edukans in 2009 and which, thanks to its positive results, is continuing during the period 2011-2013.

In Ms Chielens’ words, the WTP “links Dutch teachers with teachers in the South so as to improve education in a co-operative way”. One major problem with the educational system in developing countries is that “although a significant number of the poorest children are going to school, too few are really learning something”. It is therefore not only necessary to make sure that every child goes to school, but also to guarantee the quality of the education they receive.

“Of course, it is very difficult to give a precise value to ‘quality’, as it always depends on the context”, she says. “The quality of education has different meanings for different people”. Not all subjects are taught everywhere, nor are they taught in the same way in different countries and regions, so an objective evaluation of what pupils and students learn is not always possible – especially from the perspective of an outside observer. Edukans’ perspective on teaching and learning assumes that “individuals develop themselves on the basis of their own identities and cultures, and through the use of their own talent and potential”.

Edukans is based in Amersfoort, the Netherlands. At the moment it is collaborating with schools and organisations in six countries: Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Malawi, Peru and Uganda.
More information about the organisation and the World Teacher Project can be found in Dutch, English and Spanish on their website http://www.edukans.nl/english. Readers are also invited to write to Miet Chielens (miet.chielens@edukans.nl) or to the programme co-ordinator, Mildred Klarenbeek (m.klarenbeek@edukans.nl).

A bottom-up approach is essential, and this is one of the main strategies of the project. “The general purpose of the WTP is to study the local education system and to co-operate with local teachers, with a focus on quality issues”, and therefore paying attention to issues such as child-centred learning, active learning, or multiclass teaching. In short, this is carried out in faceto- face meetings between Dutch and local teachers.

These meetings are mutually beneficial: teachers in countries like Peru or Malawi get ideas that help them develop their teaching abilities, while Dutch teachers acquire expertise. An additional outcome is seen in the chances that teachers in the Netherlands get to improve their classes and activities, helping Dutch pupils and students develop competencies such as dealing with differences, cultural empathy, social initiative, and flexibility. As Miet Chielens puts it, these are indispensable skills for developing a “global citizenship”.

Text: Nicola Piras

The post Learning about … Teaching around the globe appeared first on Ileia.

Global food security: Ethical and legal challenges
C.M. Romeo Casabona, L. Escajedo San Epifanio and A. Emaldi Cirión (eds.), 2010.
Wageningen Academic Publishers, Wageningen. 532 pages. Read more

Rural poverty report 2011. New realities, new challenges: New opportunities for tomorrow’s generation
2010. IFAD, Rome. 317 pages. Read more

State of the world 2011: Innovations that nourish the planet
L. Starke (ed.), 2010. The Worldwatch Institute, Washington. Earthscan. 270 pages. Read more

Who benefits from GM crops? The great climate change swindle
R. Hall, S. Fleet and K. Chandrasekaran (eds.), 2010.
Friends of the Earth International, Amsterdam. 35 pages. Read more

Nourishing the land, nourishing the people: A Madagascar success story
B. Thierry, B. Shapiro, A. Woldeyes, H. Ramilison and A. Rakotondratsima, 2010.
IFAD, Rome/CABI. 202 pages. Read more

Farmer-led joint research: Experiences of PROLINNOVA partners
C. Wettasinha and A. Waters-Bayer (eds.), 2010.
PROLINNOVA, Leusden. 87 pages. Read more

More on youth

Several online resources show the important role that youth play in rural areas. Some of these are collected on the site of the ARDYIS project (Agriculture, Rural Development and Youth in the Information Society), put together by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA). Two other websites that are worth a visit are those of the 19th edition of the Brussels Briefings and the “Youths and Agriculture” section of the Future Agricultures website. Both elaborate on the potential of rural youth; the latter includes a four-page policy briefing on youth aspirations and African agriculture.

FAO and ILO have jointly developed a web site focusing on issues such as child labour in agriculture and youth employment, which contains general information and specific articles and reports. ILO, FAO and UNESCO (2009) have also published a report entitled “Training and employment opportunities to address poverty among rural youth”. Another document, published jointly by FAO and UNESCO, is “Education for rural development: Towards new policy responses” (2003). Though not available online, two comprehensive publications are “Giving youth a voice” (Marilyn Minderhoud-Jones, 2006) and “Young people, education, and sustainable development: Exploring principles, perspectives, and praxis” (edited by Peter Corcoran and Phillip Osano, 2009). (LvdB)

The post Mind! New in print / More on youth appeared first on Ileia.

The Gender, Equity and Rural Employment Division (ESW) supports FAO’s efforts to promote the economic and social well-being of the rural poor. To address the specific challenges faced by youth, this division initiated and has been following the Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools (JFFLS) approach since 2004. As seen in Palestine, the results can have a broad impact.

The Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools (JFFLS) combine support to vocational educational training opportunities with employment promotion. They are a concrete manifestation of the increasing recognition of the linkages that exist between rural employment, poverty reduction and food security. The schools have a unique methodology and curriculum, providing agricultural, life and entrepreneurship skills in an experiential and participatory learning approach. There is also an employment-oriented component which encourages and helps JFFLS graduates to form Youth Farmers’ Associations (YFAs), through which they can more easily access resources and place their produce in the markets.

A complete approach

The JFFLSYFA process is structured into 3 consecutive phases: a learning phase, an employment phase, and a market access phase. During the learning phase, FAO works closely with a country’s Ministry of Education in formal schools, the Ministry of Youth (via youth clubs or vocational education training centres) and with the Ministry of Agriculture. During the employment phase, FAO works with the Ministry of Labour, farmers’ associations and co-operatives and agri-business and marketing experts. Efforts are made to register associations, or to open youth branches within established farmers’ co-operatives. This enables the associations to register the land they use for farming under their own name. The third and last phase is the market access phase, during which FAO works closely with the Ministry of Trade and with rural finance and micro-credit institutions, aiming to connect the associations with potential lenders so as to allow them to expand their activities and production. In many countries, co-operation with the Ministries of Trade and Agriculture has helped the youth associations reach high quality standards in, for example, organic farming products.

Graduation day, Gaza StripThe programme has been successfully introduced in several African countries as well as in the Middle East and Asia. The JFFLS-YFA have more recently been included as one of the main activities in the United Nations Joint Programmes for “Youth Employment and Migration’’ in Malawi, Mozambique and Sudan, as well as in the UN’s “Jobs for Peace” programme in Nepal. Field evaluations have shown that the JFFLS-YFA approach has been helping develop the entre-preneurial and agricultural skills of the youth as well as their self-esteem, helping them become healthy and positive young adults.

Capacity building in Palestine

One of the most interesting applications of the JFFLS-YFA approach has been seen in the Palestinian territories (in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip). The situation in these territories has prevented the free flow of goods and services, and disrupted the stability needed for an orderly life. The further division of the West Bank into separated areas (as a result of the “Oslo Accords”) has contributed to the fragmentation of UN interventions and has been an impediment towards a holistic approach. Palestinian youth face a number of handicaps and disadvantages: a lack of rural employment opportunities; vulnerability to an increasingly tense crisis and the lack of appropriate agricultural training facilities.

Reduced access to land is increasing food insecurity among many households. Youths are particularly vulnerable to this as they need access to nutritious food in order to grow and develop. It is essential to invest in Palestinian youth in order to facilitate the evolution of a Palestinian state. The development of a youth workforce is one of the most important priorities and challenges towards a peaceful and prosperous society. Vocational training and employment opportunities are essential to allow the youth to make a contribution to promoting Palestinian national development. The main goal of the JFFLS-YFA approach in Palestine has been to build local capacities to meet the development needs and priorities of Palestinian youth, while responding to the need for sustainable environmental, economic and social development.

Two specifically trained facilitators (chosen among extension officers, teachers, social workers and/ or farmers’ cooperatives members), used this participatory methodology to share agricultural knowledge and life and business skills with 15 girls and 15 boys in different schools. These 2 to 3 hour sessions were given twice a week; each taking place in the field after regular school hours. The learning programme lasts a school year and follows the crop cycle; participants are taught about the links between agriculture, nutrition, gender equality and life and business skills. The course not only teaches them how to grow healthy crops, but also how to make informed decisions for leading healthy lives. Local women’s associations were put in charge of preparing and distributing meals for the students attending the lessons. The selected associations also benefited from trainings in good nutrition, health, agricultural value chains, entrepreneurship skills and on the fundamentals of the JFFLS approach.

Broader opportunities

Since 2008, approximately 2,000 youth have been trained in the JFFLS approach in the West Bank and Gaza. They have subsequently been grouped into more than 20 youth farmers’ associations, and become involved in activities that range from honey processing to horticulture and livestock. All the young farmers are full members of the associations and receive a share of the profits from their association.

Students enjoy learning about agriculture

Basel Yousef is 15 years old and one of the students selected to participate in the Junior Field Farmer and Life Schools Programme. Basel is from Salem village, one of two villages in the school catchment area in the district of Nablus, in the northern part of the West Bank. The Der Al Hatab School has 600 students, aged 9 – 15.

Basel enjoys learning how to work with the land at school as part of the JFFLS approach. He now knows the implications of seasonal changes for agriculture, how many days particular vegetables need to develop, when to water and irrigate the land, and the purpose of using fertilisers. Basel lives at home with his mother, 3 brothers and one sister, about 2 km from the school, and his family was enthusiastic about his involvement in JFFLS. Basel hopes to continue learning about agricultural practices in school and eventually go on to university.

One of the most successful examples of the employment phase comes from the Hebron district in the West Bank. Here, the JFFLS graduates came to join the Al-Shiva Hive Co-operative Society. The cooperative is renowned, nationally and internationally, for producing and exporting organic honey. The students were trained in the honey value chain and learned about agricultural value chains, beekeeping, maintaining bee hives and honey processing. They were given full membership of the Co-operative Society and share in the profits like all the other cooperative members.

Marketing exhibitions or ‘’khayrat blady’’ are organised once a year in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and bring together all the associations involved (representing both women and youth). The exhibitions not only provide a concrete marketing opportunity, but also a chance to exchange ideas and skills among themselves. These events allow the associations to display and sell their goods (including breads, vegetables, cakes, cheeses, embroidery work, handicrafts and jewellery) and to develop short and long term contracts with different clients.

Throughout the process, FAO developed and maintained strong partnerships with several ministries, the Youth Development Association, and with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). These linkages have proved crucial in strengthening the capacities of the public administration and civil society. They have also been fundamental for the institutionalisation of the JFFLS approach and the entrenchment of mechanisms for addressing rural youth unemployment. The linkages between groups of JFFLS graduates, existing youth clubs, women’s associations and local farmers’ groups have proved essential to ensuring the continuation, replicability and sustainability of the activities.

There is a continuing discussion with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education about including agricultural lesson within the national curriculum, which the Ministry appears to favour. FAO’s involvement led the Ministry of Youth to pilot agricultural lessons and the Palestinian Authority has now seen the benefit of this approach and opened a unilateral fund agreement with FAO to institutionalise this approach.

Text: Francesca Dalla Valle and Peter Wobst

Francesca Dalla Valle works as Youth Employment- Development Expert at the FAO’s Gender, Equity and Rural Employment Division. Peter Wobst works as Senior Economist at the same division.

The post Meeting a region’s broad development needs appeared first on Ileia.

Farming Matters | 27.1 | March 2011

young professionals need to be engaged in shaping the future of agriculture

Whether we look at rural farming and extension work, or at international agricultural research, we see an “ageing” global agricultural system, with an increasing lack of interest among young people across the globe in pursuing agriculture-related careers.

This is further compounded by an agricultural research system which has a limited capacity for engaging young professionals in dialogues that address critical development issues. Thus, as there is minimal input from youths into the system, there is less innovation in developing programmes that are of relevance to young professionals.

This further reduces interest among young people to enter the agricultural research for development field. While this problem is well documented, the plausible strategies for addressing it are not. Youth inclusivity in the system remains an unsolved problem, made more critical by the fact that the changes that we manage to implement today will not produce results for decades to come. But we must address it, and in doing so we must ensure that youth, the key stakeholders in this process, are involved.

The first step in attracting future young professionals is nurturing the ones we have now. This can be done through a variety of means, including focusing our capacity building opportunities on younger professionals, or ensuring that there is real youth representation in key debates over agricultural research for development debates. Similarly, creating opportunities for and fostering innovation among young people, or creating a sustainable mentoring system for the youth and providing networking opportunities among youth, especially between disciplines.

Furthermore, we need to provide more young role models for future agriculturalists to look up to and so change their perceptions of agriculture. Changing perceptions requires changes in the system itself, but we can start by highlighting a “new” agriculture like one that makes use of ICTs, for example, to show how agriculture is also a progressive field. We can also make further efforts to demonstrate the links that agriculture has with those subjects that do attract young people, such as climate change, environmental sustainability and organic farming. Agriculture must make clear its linkages with both the business and the environmental spheres.

This challenge is one of the reasons for the creation of YPARD – the Young Professionals’ Platform for Agricultural Research for Development. YPARD works with organisations to develop tangible means of ensuring that agricultural research for development is more inclusive of youth, mainstreaming them in programmes and giving them the opportunity to develop professionally. Only when young professionals are actively engaged in shaping the sector’s future will we be able to work towards a responsible agriculture that is able to meet global needs without depleting its resources.

Text: Courtney Paisley

Courtney Paisley is the YPARD co-ordinator. Readers are invited to register as a member of YPARD at www.ypard.net or contact her for more information at courtney.paisley@ypard.net

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Nepal: Finding sources of inspiration

Empowering young farmers takes on many forms – from giving them the tools they need to getting them to give their views about future agriculture policies. One interesting method is to get young farmers to meet and exchange and share ideas, and thereby inspire each other. This is what farmers like Prem Bahadur Rajali and Samsher Rajali are doing in Nawalparasi, Nepal. They are following the example of Mr Rabindra Rajali, a young farmer from Deurali. In less than five years he has increased his land under cultivation to almost two hectares, growing off-season vegetables such as tomato, potato, cabbage, cauliflower and cucumber and selling them for a profit in Kathmandu.

Although he didn’t finish school, he now owns a tractor, two pairs of bullocks, and more than 20 goats. He also leases three hectares of land from the local school, and provides work to four neighbours. Those who visit his farm hear that “to be successful, young people have to forget about their pride”. His neighbours are encouraged by his example which shows that agriculture is not a poor man’s job. “And if that is sometimes the case, then that is certainly not a crime!”

More information?
Write to Dinesh Panday, student at IAAS, Nepal.
E-mail: relorteddinesh@gmail.com

CGIAR: Showcasing the “Growing Talents”

The ICT-KM Program of the CGIAR aims to strengthen information and knowledge exchange processes between the world’s agricultural research institutions. With the launch of the International Year of Youth, the programme decided to highlight the work and opinions of some of the many enthusiastic and talented young individuals they regularly interact with, considering that “while there is no substitute for the experience, knowledge and wisdom that comes with age, young people can add a different perspective and offer fresh ideas”.

The result is a series of interviews which present these young people’s perspectives, experiences and aspirations. These are organised into a number of chapters, which can all be found online. To date, these chapters include interviews with an intern at ICRAF, a specialist with the World Fish Center, or with a GIS expert working in Kenya. With the debate and discussions that follow, every interview helps the programme in its mission of facilitating the exchange of information.

More information?
Write to Enrica Porcari, Chief Information Officer for the CGIAR and Leader of the ICT-KM Program (e.porcari@cgiar.org), or visit their website: http://ictkm.cgiar.org/youth-in-agriculture

Indonesia: Having nature as a teacher

The heartland of Indonesia’s Green Revolution can be found a few kilometres north of the city of Karawang. Farmers use fertilisers and a large number of pesticides, while their children want to migrate to the city. This is where, in 2006, Kaliaget Organic Farm started an informal community school for children. Up to 24 children follow the growth of paddy rice, meeting once every week in the 3.5 hectare farm. The teaching materials are based on training manuals prepared for Farmer Field Schools.

Although activities with children are carried out in a more playful way than the “regular” FFSs, the children perform the same observations and do very similar analyses. After only a few weeks all the participants realise how much there is to “discover” in a rice field, giving them a totally different idea about what is otherwise seen as “routine work” (according to some farmers) or “dirty work to be avoided” (as most children used to think). The work in Kaliaget shows how a small investment can help develop a positive and inquisitive attitude, contributing to children learning from, and loving, nature.

More information?
Write to Paul ter Weel, at the Kaliaget Organic Farm and School, West Java, Indonesia.
E-mail: paulterweel@gmail.com

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Linking participation with income

Farmers in many countries in the European Union have stopped producing pickling cucumbers as it is a highly labour-intensive activity. So farmers in the eastern part of the continent are making good use of the opportunity, and are producing these cucumbers for the western market. These farmers are receiving the support of organisations such as the Lutheran World Federation, with positive results. Different projects are helping develop efficient marketing strategies, strengthening farmer organisations, and also providing loans through revolving funds.

As a result of these efforts, three cooperatives in the Cazinska Krajina region, close to the border with Croatia, are producing and exporting large quantities of cucumbers. More than 2,000 farming families are part of these co-operatives. The cucumberpicking season lasts two months and is always during the summer school vacation; so many children are actively involved in picking the cucumbers or sorting them on different categories. In this way they bring some extra money into the household and also support themselves: many farmers say that the children use the money they earn for their school books.

More information?
Write to Enes Kurtović, field agronomist at Terra Sana, Association for Economic Development and Employment, Sanski Most, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
E-mail: enes.kurtovic@terrasana.com.ba

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