Podcast #2 Voices from the Zero Hunger Generation. Hello and welcome to another episode in this FAO podcast mini-series on Sustainability.

Transcription

1 FAO mini-series Podcast #2 Voices from the Zero Hunger Generation Hello and welcome to another episode in this FAO podcast mini-series on Sustainability. I m your host, Sandra Ferrari. [Theme Music up] [Sandra] Last week at the UN s Food and Agriculture Organization, the Committee on World Food security convened for their 42 nd session. But this year the organizers incorporated a new element - a space for young voices working in agriculture to be heard. But why now? Well, to feed a world of 9 billion people by 2050, it s estimated that we need to increase agricultural production by some 60 percent. To achieve this, a new generation of farmers and innovators need to be encouraged to take the reins and apply their manpower and fresh ideas to food production. Almost 88 percent of the world s young people live in developing countries. And that figure is expected to increase over the coming decades. [Theme Music out] Asia alone is home to 60 percent of the world s youth and a further 18 percent live in Africa. And many of them in rural areas. Within Africa, 61 percent of the entire population are under 24 years of age. Many of these young people in rural areas around the world face chronic poverty and joblessness. So Investing in rural development and agriculture related jobs is a smart way to address multiple problems at the same time. And along the way, young people bring new ideas and solutions to today s food challenges. [Music bed up] [Sandra] One of the youth focused events at CFS was the Idea incubator. Young people working in the agriculture industry from around the world were invited to pitch their ideas. Here are a few of those.

2 (Chemora McKnee clip) Hi, my name is Chemora McKnee, and I m from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I m 25 years old, and I m currently an intern at the Ministry of Agriculture. My project is called the garden to classroom initiative, and it aims to promote food security and nutrition by involving youths by exposing them to horticulture practices using school gardens. (Johnson Oluwaseun clip) I m Johnson Oluwaseun from Nigeria - a bee keeper. My project is to try to empower youth, a minimum of 500. Nigeria has a population of youth that are drifting to the urban areas so, you know, they can make a living. And honey is quite premium and expensive now in Africa. I think a minimum of ten hives per youth would generate enough income to sustain himself. So I look at it as an opportu nity to empower even those who are not educated, who are less privileged, who are disadvantaged, so to say, giving them a means of livelihood. (Jorum Duri) My name is Jorum Duri and I m from Zimbabwe. I m 23. My project is on urban agriculture. It is aimed at empowering unemployed young people to pursue careers in urban organic farming. In Zimbabwe currently 80 percent of young people, more than 80 percent, are unemployed. And there s increased urbanization, with the majority of young people in Zimbabwe now staying in urban areas. A lot of them they know how to farm, so I saw that it is a great opportunity for me to talk to them to actually train them so that they can have a career in urban agriculture, which will also improve the food security in Zimbabwe, the food security and nutrition. (Rose Sakala) Ok my name is Rose Sakala from Malawi. I m 22 years old. I m here to present my idea to CFS where I m looking at identifying the youth that have potential and viable business ideas, but then they lack resources. So we ll train youth in agribusiness and entrepreneurship, so that we keep them with the skills that they want for their business and then link them to already existing structures. It may be organizations. It may be the private sector. And at the end of the year, the idea that received the help from the stakeholders should be able to give back to the community by adopting a new business idea that it can fund. The youth are energetic, they are full of talent but they lack empowerment. So my initiative is there to empower them and have them encouraged in agriculture because Malawi is an agro-based economy and we re looking at boosting up production so we can boost up our economy. Most youth have got their degrees but they are desperate. Some of them maybe just went to college, but they don t have a job. So at least involving them in agriculture, which has the potential, will help them to be financially empowered and give back to the community by developing their areas.

3 [Sandra] Last week Kim Jenna Jurriaans sat down with the outgoing CFS Chair, Gerd a Verburg to talk about the importance of including youth in this year s CFS. [Gerda Verburg Intv] [Kim-Jenna] Why is it important to consider the role of young people in our food systems? [Gerda] Farmers are aging all over the world. I think the average age is about 60. If there is not a new generation, the world will be hungry within 20 years that s one reason. The second reason is because young people are eager to step in and introduce new technologies and innovative approaches. Together with older generations they can improve the whole food system. And the third reason is to keep young people attracted to stay in the rural area. [Kim-Jenna] The organizers of CFS have made an effort to include youth more prominently in this year s agenda. How was this idea received by the members of CFS? [Gerda] Everyone was enthusiastic because people involved on the committee on world food security are well aware of the challenges not only how to feed more than 9 billion people by 2050, but also the challenges when it comes to sustainability, innovative approaches, scarcity, etc. [Kim-Jenna] Why is it important to bring young voices into spaces like CFS? [Gerda] Young people have something special. They know how to work with new technology. They also creative in thinking how farming and food production can become more rewarding. [Kim-Jenna] What does the zero hunger generation have to keep in mind as they plow towards more sustainable food systems? [Greda] We need all generations to reach zero hunger. So not only the younger, not only the older generations but all generations hand in hand. We can learn from each other. We have to work together. Not only intergenerational, but also with multi-stakeholders. [Sandra] A lack of investment in many rural communities means a lack of jobs. Young people are moving to urban areas to look for opportunity. The young people who are staying need support. What Ms Verburg highlighted there was the very sentiment that many working in agriculture are expressing. That is why and how we need to include youth in agriculture sectors. One of the main events during last week s CFS was a youth plenary. Youth and those working with youth in agriculture sectors were invited to discuss issues concerning the zero hunger generation and how youth today will help the world build more sustainable food systems for the future.

4 I brought the panelists into the studio to discuss the issues that were going to be brought to table during the event. For those of you listening to this podcast, please note that one of our guests in studio will be speaking in Spanish, we have an interpreter with us here who will facilitate the exchange and communicate the ideas being put on the table by the other guests. [PANEL TAPE - IN] [Sandra] Let s go around the table and introduce ourselves. [Jaime] I m Jaime Manalo IV from the Philippines. I head the Development Communication Division of the Philippine Rice Research Institute. Basically I m leading a campaign; it s called the Infomediary campaign. Its youth engagement in agriculture in the Philippines and it s being implemented in over 100 high schools nationwide in the Philippines. [Hlami] May name is Hlamalani Ngwenya from South Africa. I m a consultant for the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services. I m here as one of the private sector mechanism delegates and I m working on the issues of talent development. [Thembi] My name is Sithembile Ndema Mwamakamba. I work for the Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network. It s a mouthful so we like to call ourselves FANRPAN. We re a regional organization working in Africa, focusing on food natural resources policies. And I work as the project coordinator for the projects focusing on youth and women. So, I m working on engaging young people in policy processes. [Luz] Hi, thank you for having me. I am Luz and I come from a farmers community called Cajamarca in the North of Peru. I work for the International Catholic Movement of Rural Youth. We work with young farmers, indigenous people, fishermen and artisans. [Sandra] So the first question that I ll pose to all of you. What are the main challenges in trying to engage youth in the agriculture sector? [Jaime] I guess the key issue in engaging young people, one of the main challenges, is their perception in agriculture. For instance, in the Philippines, there s a long history of poverty among farming families. So, it s kind of difficult to convince them to pursue a career in agriculture if for the longest time a lot of poverty issues have been encountered and their parents in the same way their parents would not want them to take agriculture courses because of the poverty. So, I guess that s one of the key issues in engaging young people to pursue agriculture related courses. [Hlami] I think one of the biggest challenges related to the issue of perception is that young people or even many other people, even those who are not young they think of agriculture from the narrow perspective of farming or primary production. And that young people don t want to engage with. I m saying, if we widen the scope and widen the lens

5 through which we promote agriculture we can be able to attract young people into the sector. [Thembi] I would say that one of the biggest challenges, actually I m thinking of two things. The first one is the fact that young people are often looked on as clients and not the drivers of any initiatives that are out there. So when it comes to policies no one consults them to say let s try and develop this together, let s try and develop agriculture projects together, but in the end we then want them to be mentors or to be beneficiaries, which really doesn t work. So they have to be the drivers of whatever initiatives we come up with. Secondly, I would like to say that there is really a lack of good role models out there who are working in agriculture, who can show young people that this thing works, because young people are often attracted to what they see as being successful. So if you don t have enough of those role models out there, you won t have young people taking part in agriculture. [Luz] One of the major challenges that we face is the recognition of such communities, I mean young people living in rural areas. We do need to be effectively recognized, as we are human beings with full rights. We need different public policies, different programmes and projects to develop all the human potential that we have in our regions. A second important challenge to us is also the access to pertinent and quality education. We deserve as much at social, political, economic and production level to extend our capacities and abilities in order to promote our own development [Sandra] Do you have a specific example from your work that taught you something about the willingness or even unwillingness - of youth to engage in agriculture initiatives? [Hlami] Back at home in South Africa, I engage a lot also with youth. You find that there are youth that are taking agriculture as a subject at high school level, and when you ask them, what do you want to do, definitely agriculture will not come as a top priority subject, where they want to pursue. They ll tell you, I take agriculture because I have to do it but I don t see myself in the agricultural sector because I don t want to be a farmer. Especially in the rural areas, you find that families do farming for subsistence, so you have mothers, grandmothers, who are small holder famers, and they have never benefited in terms of economic gain of it. They remain poor. So these are the people that a lot of young people especially in the rural areas see. You know what pick what Thembi said about the role model, so they associate that with poverty. They associate that with something that is not sexy, and sexy in the context of, you know, not profitable. But also to expand what I m promoting is that yes, farming primary production - is part of agriculture. I see Thembi here, I will make reference to her because I know her well, she s in the policy space and she s doing very well. She s a role, but she s not farming, but she s a very key actor in the agricultural sector. Is that not a role model? Is that not an opportunity for young people to engage? So we need to expand how we look at agriculture. There are other skills and functions that we need to promote in order to attract young people.

6 [Luz] In Latin America and especially in Peru, youth are involved in agriculture since they can remember. But we practice small-scale and subsistence agriculture. The products we get are only used for day-to-day food and we need more. And this is a huge challenge for young people like me to ensure access to food with the right nutrients to meet our basic needs. The second challenge would be to diversify our agriculture to develop rural areas and to allow the whole family to meet the basic food basket. And this is not happening right now, this is why we are facing rural exodus. Youth are not attracted to rural areas because they are not sustainable and they do not ensure them a decent quality of life. This is a big challenge for us and it means making rural areas attractive enough to convince the youth and children to stay in such areas and ensure access to health and education. [Sandra] Do you think the vision that policy makers or stakeholders have for youth in agriculture is the same vision of what youth have for themselves or for the future of the agriculture sector? [Hlami] I think what I find is a limiting factor. You see a lot of talent or youth development initiatives still looking at farming and the value chain from that narrow perspective. And we are sitting here in this room, and we are sitting here in this conference, there are a lot of exciting ideas, you know there are brilliant people, they are sharing their expertise. But when we sell the idea to young people, we are not selling the things that we are doing. It s amazing! You have a CEOs you have people who are doing brilliant things in the agricultural sector. If I were a young person listening to that, definitely I would run to the agricultural sector. We are not selling that. [Sandra] So, agriculture, maybe, has a branding issue. [Thembi] I agree, I think agriculture has a branding issue, but it goes way beyond that. It s the opportunities. Where are they presented? Hlami has mentioned that there are these CEOs and all these big players here, but do young people have a space in those CEO meetings? Can they openly participate in that and can they contribute to those discussions? This is a very important point because we may be talking about all of the wonderful things that agriculture can do for young people; but are young people in that space for them to be able to tap into the opportunities that we are saying are out there? The other thing in Africa we have a growing population challenge, but what I m afraid of is that agriculture is being presented as a solution to the unemployment crisis. It can t be presented as a solution to the unemployment crisis because you can t tell people to go into medicine because there s an unemployment crisis. You can t tell people to go into finance because there is an unemployment crisis. So, already, by putting it across that way you re making it less attractive, because it s like, we don t have anything else to solve this problem with, so let s just do agriculture. It s not supposed to be that way. Agriculture is supposed to be the career of choice because we re talking about food security here. You cannot be a doctor unless your stomach is full. You cannot be an accountant if you re hungry. So agriculture has to be the career of choice and not as an afterthought. So, I think it s important that we stress that.

7 [Luz] In my opinion, such kinds of forums are really important to discuss, analyse, look at the current food security situation and identify the most vulnerable people. I also think that we need to consider all proposals, including those that often remain unresolved and on paper only. I am representing rural youth here, we are in 4 continents and more than 30 countries. We face many constraints like working with local and national governments in our countries, for example. We think that national public investment systems are not addressing the agricultural needs of vulnerable rural populations. On the other hand, investment and capacity development in agriculture do not seem to be a priority. There is a huge gap between young farmers and the public and private sector. We need to find a connection point to link those 3 sectors and start working together, recognizing the importance of both youth and the rural sector. Youth are the second biggest part of the population after children, and we are responsible for promoting sustainable agricultural development in such vulnerable rural areas. To date we lack the experience as we do not see the private sector. [Sandra] So for the final question - let s go around very quickly now starting with Luz What should be the role of youth in CFS and CFS decision making going forward? [Luz] Youth must have an active and participative role. For that, we need to empower ourselves in such important place. I think that promoting organizational strengthening is very relevant. We cannot represent ourselves only in a forum like CFS, we need to promote organizational strengthening in the different rural areas as they are the most vulnerable. And from there we need to standardize global experiences, projects and programmes in order to promote public policies in support of the sector, considering the requirements and perceptions of youth. We also have to create a joint global plan. It is necessary because we must clearly define our objectives, our goals in the short and long term. If we do not have a global plan for youth we will continue our work without any long term vision. That is the only way to move forward and also build our new rural life. [Thembi] I would like to see the youth being more involved in the decision making process. And that involvement for me will entail a recognized seat in the CFS with full voting rights. I would like to see more and more programmes within the CFS, especially at the annual meetings, having a focus on youth. In the plenary, we need to have more discussions on youth issues, and how the challenges young people are facing can be addressed. And by the way, the youth have the answers to how you can solve their challenges. So you cannot talk around them, you cannot talk about them and not involve them. So they have to be at the centre of that. And young people should be given a space to showcase what works. And to highlight the work that they themselves are initiating not just the work that development organizations come from somewhere and come and implement. No. We need to look at the innovations that young people are coming up with. And we also need to look at the networks that are there to support young people because I believe that talent development and skills development is beyond just having a B.Sc. degree in agriculture. It s more

8 comprehensive than that. And CFS has an opportunity to bring that to the floor and highlight that. And really engage young people. [Hlambi] I will take my discussion to the implementation to the global agenda What is the role of young people there? I use perfect as an acronym. This is a concept that I borrowed, using it in the context of talent development. P stands for policies. We need young people to engage in policy processes. The E stands for entrepreneurship. The R stands for research. We need to sell that. We need to sell that to attract our top students, to take agriculture as the career or choice. F, that is the farming that everybody is looking at, but I would like to add finance. We need to attract your B-comm students and people in the financial sector, who can actually see agriculture as an opportunity. Food science. At the moment we are talking about the link between food, agriculture and health. And this is what the SDGs are all about, all about partnerships. We need to attract those. The other E. Education. Every organization talks about training. Is there not an opportunity for young people to engage and contribute. Extension and Rural advisory services. The C communications. You sitting there. You are interviewing us, it s all about communications, journalism. We re talking about theatre. We re talking about social media and we have to sell that to attract young people who have got those skills to really engage. And T, technologies. We re talking about the ICTs, we re talking about technologies. We need young people to contribute and when we look at these perfect opportunities for young people, we have a better possibility to achieve our agenda [Jaime] I would have to agree, on the point raised earlier, that I would like the CFS to be an avenue to look into more cases of how young people can be engaged. The call for experiences was really, really, impressive. From what we learned is there are actually a lot of initiatives going on around the world and how to engage young people. SO, I think we should do a lot of these things just to compare notes. What could work in this country, what could work in this country, so that we can replicate these kinds of initiatives. I d like to close my part of this podcast by raising three points. First: When engaging young people in agriculture it is important to show relevance. The youth should realize that their participation is important, that they can actually do something. If they want to end hunger they themselves can do something. And that s what the campaign is doing. The campaign that I m leading, the Infomediary campaign. It operates in some of the remotest communities in the Philippines that are not usually reached by extension services. So we re basically mobilizing the young people, to serve as information providers in that community. Second is start from where they are. The question earlier, does the vision to engage the youth the same as the vision for themselves?, I d like to say that the chance is high that it is not. For instance in the Philippines, if you ask young people there, they d likely say that they would like to be a nurse in the UK or an IT expert in the united states, all these high paying jobs in other countries. But if you look further, if you try to read migration data, you see what it says basically is that since the 1970s, the literature has been expounding on problems and problems, but not much on solutions. So, they ve been saying that there has

9 been some massive youth exodus away from agriculture communities, rice farming communities, but hey what are we doing? You don t find much on these things. So you need to reread migration data. Young people say that they like to move to urban communities. Does that equate to them not wanting to be a part of agricultural communities? Our research says that it doesn t follow. They d like to be engaged in another way. They d like to pursue other passions - they d like to be nurses, they d like to be IT experts but not that they want to leave agriculture. This means that policy makers should create ways on how we should creatively engage the youth in agriculture. The third point is participatory engagement. When we d like to engage young people, it cannot just be engaging young people per se. There are a lot of stakeholders here. First is their parents. Their parents wouldn t want their children, so we should engage them to work collaboratively on these matters. [Sandra] We could probably speak for hours. Thanks to all of you for participating muchos gracias. [Music up] Creating sustainable food systems means investing in a number of different components of sustainability, as outlined in the sustainable development goals adopted by countries in September. And for agriculture, investing in opportunities for youth to become involved in food production and apply their ideas to all aspects of our food chain is an essential part of the puzzle. Guests in today s podcast raised questions about the challenges facing youth and youth investment in agriculture but they also highlighted solutions. Next, week we look at one last angle of sustainability and that s the issue of climate change. We ll speak about how agriculture and sustainable food systems fit into that conversion. This has been an FAO podcast with me your host Sandra Ferrari. Thank you for listening. [Music out] If you would like to hear the full interviews from guests in this episode, visit our webpage at FAO.org/media for more information

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