More young people are needed in Africa’s agriculture sector according to African Development Bank (AfDB) director of Gender, Women and Civil Society, Vanessa Moungar.
“The average age of people in agriculture is 60 years in Africa, yet 60 percent of the continent’s population is under the age of 35 years,” she said. “We need to address this gap by promoting business in agriculture.”
Moungar noted that young business leaders would be able to build profitable and sustainable businesses in the agriculture sector by focusing on finding technological solutions and innovations to the challenges experienced by farmers.
“Young people are now at the forefront of creating innovative tools that help farmers by providing them with important information and linking them to suppliers and clients all over the world,” she added.
“I grew up seeing people using hoes and other rudimentary tools to farm and it started to occur to me that such methods cannot propel the agriculture sector or lure young people who now interact with technology on a daily basis,” said CEO of Tanzanian biofood technology company BIOTET, Japhet Sekenya.
The AfDB highlighted in a statement released yesterday (Tuesday) that its youth programme had created a US$15-billion fund aimed at creating 1.5 million agribusiness jobs and 300 000 agribusiness enterprises in the next five years.
