Webinar recording
About this webinar:
Agriculture is often overlooked by youth and others as an economically viable option, however it is an evolving sector that requires technical skills and forward-thinking solutions in order face the challenges that will be required to meet our global food demands. Please join us for a webinar that will highlight how youth are changing the face of agriculture. We will hear from Ms. Jane Lowicki-Zucca, Senior Youth Advisor, USAID/Bureau for Food Security on how youth can become more involved in agriculture. We will also hear from two members of Young Professionals for Agriculture Development (YPARD), a global network with over 18,000 web-registered members from more than 70 countries. These two young changemakers from YPARD Nepal will share their experiences with the challenges related to the effects of our changing climate and how they are working towards solutions for climate-resilient agriculture.
Speakers:
Ms. Jane Lowicki-Zucca, Senior Youth Advisor, USAID/Bureau for Food Security
Jane Lowicki-Zucca serves as Senior Youth Advisor for the USAID Bureau for Food Security, where she supports youth inclusion in activities related to agriculture-led growth, nutrition, water and resilience. Prior to joining USAID, Jane served as Program Director for the Driving Youth-led New Agribusiness and Microenterprise (DYMAMIC) Program in Uganda, facilitating opportunities for youth in agriculture through market systems development approaches that emphasized private sector engagement. Over decades of humanitarian and development work, Jane has held numerous positions where she worked to elevate attention to young people’s concerns and support their contributions at all levels. These have included among others Director of the Children and Adolescents Program of the Women’s Refugee Commission, International Rescue Committee (IRC); Senior Consultant to UNICEF Regional Office CEE/CIS; Social Affairs Officer within the United Nations Youth Program; and Advisor, Youth Protection and Development, IRC.
Abhishek Khadka, Country Representative, YPARD Nepal
Abhishek has completed his master's degree in food technology with major in Dairy Technology. He has worked as a lecturer and he is currently working in Rural Reconstruction Nepal. He is also a country representative for YPARD Nepal and Programme Officer for YPARD Asia Pacific. Apart from that he is also utilizing his spare time as a faculty member of Dairy Technology for Goldengate College and National College of Food Science and Technology. He believes that youth should have an entrepreneurial spirit so he is also co-founder of Bio-Polymer Industries Pvt. Ltd, which produces compostable plastics that degrades within 150 days.
Aastha Bhusal, Member, YPARD Nepal
Aastha is a permanent resident of Pokhara, Nepal. She has completed a Master’s Degree in Agriculture (Plant Pathology). She has four years of professional experience in conducting and disseminating results of research to enhance knowledge on agriculture, biodiversity, climate change adaptation, and food security. She is an active member of YPARD Nepal.
Questions and answers from the webinar:
1. What can be a training program for the remote area where there is less land for agriculture?
Abhishek: Training module can be different, like in the remote area we can’t focus on the PowerPoint based training as well as the ability of the rural people understand such based training is very difficult. In my project site I am conducting farmer’s field school. A school where farmers are being trained I the field for approx. 16 to 20 weeks in a single crop cycle. The crop is included is as the high value cash crops such as Cabbage, Cauliflower, Peas. The breed which was introduced to them was high yielding in less coverage of land as well as it can resist the climate variations.
Farmer field school can be in different issues like increased production and productivity, post-harvest management, market linkage, sustainability.
Like example, in Dolakha a group of farmers were trained about farming field school in bell chilli and she is able to sell the bell chilli (Akabare one of the most good quality) for $3 and she harvests approx. 2000 kg from 20m by 20m plot land and such farming is being done by 10 farmers in organized manner with huge production and now the chilies are being exported to Doha, Qatar also. The training had given huge impact in livelihood changes of the farmers.
2. In my Country Liberia, most of the Youth and Farmers haven't realize farming as a business and they are not willing to venture into agribusiness or farming as a business. How can they know the importance of farming as a business? How can they get interest in the Agriculture sector for empowerment and employment?
Abhishek: In context to Nepal 66% of the people are engaged in agriculture and it contributes to 33% of the GDP. Not only in Liberia, in Nepal also it’s same. There are different value chain actors in the market linkages where farmer gets paid low and consumer pays high for the same product. Since there are different value chain actors the price gets high. A good example would be onion case the consumer had to pay Rs 250 per kg ($2.3) whereas farmer was paid only Rs. 10 ($0.02). In the earlier case mentioned above (QN1) the group of bell chilli registered a company with 11 shareholders now they are taking part in every linkages of market thereby replacing middlemen in agribusiness. Now they are able to earn a high income even after deducting all the expenses.
Another example I would like to share about the integrated farming. In my project site the group of farmers were supported with 23 cows to 23 farmers. All cows are reared in one shed and the dung and urine are composted to farmyard manure. Approx 300 litre of milk is produced daily and they sell milk to nearby dairy with Rs. 45 per liter (Rs. 13500 or $ 130) daily and average profit of farmer is Rs. 21000 (US$ 200). Not only milk they make farm yard manure themselves thus reducing the purchase of the manure and increased agriculture productivity. Apart from that some had also used in Biogas plant for fuel purpose.
After all these case stories, I am summing up with that there should be some motivator who motivates the communities and the replicator who replicates the motivator works. The farming practice should be changed from subsistence to commercial farming and if possible integrated farming is appreciated. If there is large commodities we don’t need to find the market the market will find farmer.
3. How can they get support or grants for such projects?
Abhishek: The local governing authorities are financier for the project. The grant size from such authorities might be small but still the farmer should be motivated with small grant where he can achieve the larger result (Larger result may mean as high production). After large production he can be assisted with different national as well as international funding agencies. To be honest no funding agencies will fund if there are no preliminary results. Since I have been working with the different European funding partners, it’s their basic requirement to show the preliminary result before and how the funding helps in changing the livelihood of the beneficiaries.
But I still I recommend that the primary funding should begin with local government as well as provincial/state government in the secondary state for the better economic sustainability.
4. Are youth involved in this project also trained for life skill including financial literacy? if yes, do you have best practice or lesson learn about how life skill have a good impact on youth development in this project.
Aatha: Yes, the youths involved in the project are well trained for their life skill along with financial literacy. They are provided with capacity building trainings on how an individual can receive and mobilize funds effectively to conduct the activities on the ground to earn their livelihood. Youths are also sensitized on utilization of the revolving funds of their group for different income generating activities. Similarly, awareness raising programmes has been conducted on various creative works like hygiene, dietary harvest, pesticide free production, etc. I would like to highlight one of the good practice that youths have been involved as: Commercial vegetable cultivation being conducted by a small group of youths comprising of nine members. The youths of the village in western part of Nepal have formed a group where all the activities from budgeting from sowing to harvesting and even marketing was conducted by these youths. They are cautious of budget requirement in various stages of the production. The youths have developed their capacities and have been an example to influence other young people to join the group. Gradually, year after year the number of the youths has been increasing. These youths have also been successful to submit the proposal to different other agencies to receive the funds for various agricultural works. They have demonstrated as a success story of getting funds from the governmental unit and mobilizing it effectively besides the regular project support.
5. How does market system facilitation engage youth, ensure inclusivity?
Abhishek: Gender was included in the projects but it’s only after 2010 where donor agencies, inter/national I/NGOs and government organization found the youth part missing and develop the capacity development programme for youth. In my view youth should be engaged in more value chain actors as well as in farming also so they can connect the market with less middlemen linkages. For this they should be trained in value chain activities (farm to fork). In addition to that now the market is being global and there is a global competition also and youths should be prepare on that also. So engagement of youths from different education background should be involved for the reduction of the price. So that the high number of the consumers can purchase the commodities.
Aastha: Market is one of the essential component in the agricultural production process. An individual grows and cultivates a single saplings thinking that s/he will get the market value of the crops after home consumption. A youth will definitely seek for more market to produce and fetch a better price of his/her agricultural product. In this case, one should be aware of the link of different actors of the value chain because these actors are the one that ultimately facilitates and make the system feasible. If one actor is absent, the other will definitely fall. A strong pre-plan schedule for the market system is utmost where engagement of the youths is mandatory. There has been cases where the grower/producers are not getting the price that he/she needs and they are compelled to decompose the products. Because for them the cost of cultivation has been much higher than getting a profit out of it and that will be no worth for them. So, in my perspective, a strong market linkage and its systemized facilitation is utmost that motivates the youths to increase the agricultural production and productivity. For these, collection centre could be one of the option as the products produced by the youths in bulk can be collected in a place i.e., collection centre and then they can be transported to bigger cities where they fetch a good price.