Youths in Agriculture,the future of work.

The clamor to get more people into agriculture is growing by the day. The diversification of various economies around the world has seen massive revamping of the agricultural sector with youths in the center stage. The eye-opening fact that the ever growing world population needs a massive input of food production to ensure food security where many nations have realized that to feed themselves they have to double-up on agriculture combined with various innovations and technology transfer from other nations to reach their goal. The inclusion of youth in agriculture through various initiatives are widespread all over the world but most predominant in African countries,who according to reports will account for a major percentage of the population growth expected. In Nigeria there are various agricultural-initiatives targeted at youths,young graduates and high school graduates,the AGRIC-YES programme is an example.The government also recently announced a graduate agric scheme which will see about 500,000 trained in various sectors of agriculture such as poultry e.t.c. The school agric project is also another initiative,where agricultural practices and processes are taught and practiced in schools,thereby equipping the students for the future while growing their interest in agriculture. The agricultural initiatives spans across the country with many state governments incorporating youths in various scheme; the Osun state government recently sent some youths to Germany for training in agriculture with the goal to expand expertise and establish a more viable agrarian economy, the Imo state government has even proposed that the workers in the state should operate a 3-day-in the office and 2-days for agriculture to further empower the workers and increase food production in the state. A recent survey shows that more young Africans are ditching office jobs for the farms,a sign that the youths themselves realize that agriculture,agribusiness and agric-investment is where the future lies. They Jamaica recently staged a youth in agriculture village with the theme My dream;agripreneurship. Read A new initiative to involve more youths in agriculture in Jamaica has be launched by Farm Up Jamaica Limited (FUJL) which has implemented a ‘Young Soldiers for Food Security’ (YSFS) programme aimed at encouraging more of the country’s youth to get involved in agriculture. Farm Up is a non-profit organisation, established in 2013 to assist local farmers in the cultivation of organic produce. It is comprised of Jamaicans living in the diaspora. Executive Director of FUJL, Neil Curtis, said YSFS is a “deliberate push” to engage the youth in farming, after realizing that the majority of the persons in the sector are over 50 years old .Students from several agriculture schools get the opportunity to gain practical farming experience by working on our organic farms every weekend, and thus helping them to consider farming as an alternative career path. He The future actually lies in agriculture as many have come to realize that no nation can survive without agriculture because its the basis of major industries such as textile,leather,food processing,arts and crafts and biogas and electricity. The race to get more people involved is not solely for food security but to engage more stakeholders so as to provide innovative solutions to the climate change by practicing agriculture with better understanding of the ecosystem.