There is nothing more convincing than actually seeing youth successfully engaged in agriculture for others to become involved or to be encouraged to take the first steps. On this basis, the initiative Agribusiness TV will focus on youth agricultural entrepreneurship initiatives in Africa and will be the first web television (also known as web TV). Initiated by MediaProd, a company specialised in communication for agricultural and rural development, the project is supported by CTA.

Featuring youth interviews, testimonials and stories from the field, Agribusiness TV will address the following questions: How did these young people achieve success in agribusiness? What were the key factors which made their business idea work? What were the challenges faced and how did they manage to overcome them? What is the current status of youth in agribusiness in Africa, particularly in each of the various countries of focus? Where are the opportunities and how to seize them?

How it works and what to expect?

Agribusiness TV will be launched as a web and mobile application featuring young women and men under 40 years engaged in agribusiness in any segment of the agricultural value chain. The videos will focus on key commodities identified by regional economic organisations (ECOWAS, CEMAC, etc.) and in regional agricultural policy documents, as well as regional trade endeavours. Youth already involved in or interested in agribusiness are the primary target audience for the videos with individuals and organisations supporting youth in agricultural entrepreneurship also targeted.

The project will initially feature quality video reports from four countries in Western and Central Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire, although other countries will also be covered to some extent. Other relevant videos produced by partners or other stakeholders will be identified, selected and shared through the web TV.

The team and expected launch

The team behind Agribusiness TV is a group of young African video journalists and agricultural specialists who have worked in the agricultural sector for many years and have a good knowledge of youth in agriculture. An inception workshop will be held during 7-11 February 2016 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, which will involve the Agribusiness TV team meeting to fine-tune and finalise their work plan for the first phase of the project. Following this workshop, it is expected that the web TV will be officially launched by April 2016.

For more information or to get featured, contact MediaProd at:

Email: agribusiness.tv@gmail.com
Twitter: @AgribusinessTV
Telephone: +226 60 04 23 23

The Agribusiness WebTV initiative is one of the projects selected in 2015 in the framework of the CTA Youth Call for Proposals, launched in the framework of the Agriculture, Rural Development and Youth in the Information Society (ARDYIS) Project.

It starts with a brief review of the challenges preventing young agripreneurs from accessing needed finance. It went further to assess the current state of financing available to youth in agriculture, observing that financing youth in agriculture is already happening.

Besides, where African youth have had this financing opportunity, they have found innovative and creative strategies to secure a future for themselves while contributing to the development of the private sector and social stability in their countries. However, because young people often have fewer assets to use as collaterals, there is still a considerable gap in their access finance especially through formal institutions, thus financing of youth in agriculture needs to be scaled up.

Authors summarized their analyses and recommendations into five key points indicated below:

• Links between young entrepreneurs in agriculture and formal financial institutions need to be strengthened by improving youth’s financial literacy and the capability of institutions to assess agricultural sector opportunities.
• Better metrics can drive better policy – African governments should produce and share reliable statistics on youth employment in agriculture and their financial inclusion.
• Young agripreneurs, having fewer assets, will benefit from forms of finance that do not require fixed collateral, such as contract farming, leasing, warehouse receipt finance or factoring. Governments and international development organizations should encourage such forms of finance through blending and guarantee schemes.
• Crowdfunding platforms offer opportunities to young African entrepreneurs, including in agriculture, and governments should remove all barriers that prevent them from operating properly, including for equity and loan financing.
• A scarcity of venture capital firms (including the mentoring services that they provide) hampers African young entrepreneurs, including in agriculture, in developing and scaling up their businesses. Development organizations should continue to scale up their support for challenge funds and impact investing to fill this critical gap in the market.

Leveraging on these recommendations can help governments and development organisations working with young people in agriculture to facilitate increased youth engagement in agriculture and unleash their entrepreneurship drive.

Authors of the Chapter: Lamon Rutten and Sehomi Landry Fanou

Download the chapter here

Furthermore, it attempted to highlight the key challenges and opportunities for Africa’s youth in agriculture and make recommendations to policy makers and other stakeholders on how to foster increased involvement of young people in agriculture.

While African youth have shown insufficient interest in agriculture, and their engagement have not been sufficiently supported, the emerging trend of applying ICT solutions to agriculture are attracting an increasing number of youth (back) to agriculture. These young people often bring their energy, creativity and tech-savviness to agriculture and are changing its landscape in Africa.

This is being done through various initiatives, such as better integrating ICTs in record keeping, promoting agriculture among other youth via social media platforms, creating virtual markets that help farmers/agripreneurs connect to markets more easily and get better prices, developing ICT applications for agricultural value chains. Youth are helping to advance new agricultural ICT-enabled practices, such as e-extension and precision agriculture. The inclusion of ICTs is gradually generating additional livelihood opportunities for them and strengthening their engagement with the sector.

Young people are, however, constrained by a host of factors, including the relatively high cost of access to ICTs, inadequate capacity, unreliable connectivity, weak (but improving) integration of ICTs into the agricultural value chains, and limited access to finance for their activities.

ICT uses analysed in this report build on the framework of engaging youth in agriculture through ICTs developed by the CTA ARDYIS project.

Examples of initiatives analysed include those implemented by stakeholders such as IICD, YPARD, IFAD, the Rwandan Ministry of Youth and ICTs (MYICT), Agri-ProFocus.

Key recommendations include:

• Facilitate affordable access to ICTs for young farmers
• Support ICT for agricultural research, innovation and youth entrepreneurship
• Develop digital literacy programs for young farmers and agripreneurs
• Strengthen ICT incorporation into agricultural curricula
• Support the sharing of success stories on ICT and youth in agriculture

In justifying the focus on youth, AGRA pointed out a post-launch press release on its website that: "Youth participation all along the value chain is vital to the growth of the agriculture-based economies of most African countries – from agricultural research and development, to food production, storage and handling, to agroprocessing, through to marketing and distribution in local, regional and international food markets. African youth present an unprecedented opportunity to deal with the constraints and challenges holding back improvements in agricultural productivity. Channeling the energy, strength, and dynamism of Africa’s youth into productive, competitive and profitable agribusinesses (including food production) will boost agricultural productivity, ensure sustainable food production system, create jobs, and generate incomes. The impact of youth involvement and participation in agriculture and food systems will be seen in sustainable economic growth, and in the reduction of poverty and malnutrition across the continent."

CTA Contributions

The chapter on "Innovative and Inclusive Finance for Youth in Agriculture" (chapter 4 in the report), highlighted the weak link between youth agripreneurs and formal financial institutions, including the scarcity of venture capital firms to support young entrepreneurs. It suggested alleviating these challenges for example through innovative financial means that required fewer or no assets or fixed collateral; such as contract farming, leasing, warehousing receipt, including socially innovative ways like crowdfunding.

On the other hand, the chapter on "ICT and Youth in Agriculture" (chapter 5) explored ICT for agriculture status and trends in Africa, and examined the roles ICTs are playing in supporting youth involvement in the sector. It also illustrated how youth are contributing to strengthening agricultural value chains through ICT innovations. It finallly discussed the current challenges relating to ICT use by youth (agricultural entrepreneurs, ICT entrepreneurs venturing in agriculture or other youth active in the sector) and suggested ways that those problems can be resolved.

Conclusions

In the end, as also expressed in the release quoted earlier, "the report is an affirmation and recognition of the prominent role of youth in transforming SSA agriculture and their vital contribution to engendering a uniquely African green revolution. Youth are vital to development and growth across Africa. The hope is that all stakeholders – whether from the public or private sector, or from government or non-governmental organizations working to transform African agriculture – will recognize the importance and potential of Africa’s youth and wisely invest in them to reduce poverty, end hunger, and ensure healthy lives and wellbeing for all at all ages."

Download the full report here