According to the World Bank, Africa will double its population by 2050 from one to 2 billion people, and the biggest category in this population will be the youth who currently account nearly 70% of the population across the continent who will either be unemployed, emigrate or work in “more attractive sectors” – which excludes agriculture. The future of Africa demands that the continent proactively rope in young people and entrepreneur into the sector, to take up farming as a business and get involved in its agribusiness value-chains with passion and confidence.
The continent has a unique age demographic relative to Europe and North America. Currently, 43 percent of the total Sub-Saharan population for example is below the age of 14 (65% are below the age of 35 and 35% of these are between the ages of 15-35). As a result, between now and 2025, over 330 million young Africans will enter the labour market. Even under the most favorable scenario, the non-farm sector will only be able to absorb at most 200 million of the youth into gainful employment. Over 70% of the African youth population remains in rural areas.
Tree Talk Plus hosts the Global Partnership for African Youth in Agriculture, an umbrella youth network for Kenya, Uganda and South Africa which supports education, information, learner exchange and training network of agricultural professionals and development practitioners who seek to provide technical and strategic support to youth-focused agricultural projects across Africa. The network supports programmes in the following areas:
Youth development in agricultural projects,
Information generation and dissemination,