Impacts that have been achieved by engaging youth in Agriculture value chain

Country Background 2.1. Swaziland agricultural profile The Kingdom of Swaziland is a small landlocked country bordering South Africa and Mozambique with a population of about 1.0 million, of which 76 % is rural with approximately 53% of the population being females and 47% male, while the proportion of those under age 15 years is 40 percent with a life expectancy at birth of 41 years (UNDP 2007).

Agriculture Contribution to GDP and Employment The Swazi economy is based largely on agriculture and agro-industry. Soft drink concentrate, wood pulp, canned fruit and sugar are the main exports. Primary as well as secondary sugar-cane-based industries constitute the largest part of agro-processing in Swaziland. Sugar contributes about 18% to GDP, 7% to foreign exchange earnings and 35% to agricultural wage employment. It is estimated that Swaziland contains 166,000 ha of commercial forests; among the largest such tree plantations as a percentage of land utilization in the world. Three companies, with a combined 110,000 ha of land, dominate the industry and are major employers. It is believed that when contractors and their families are added to the core numbers employed they provide a living for at least 20,000 people.

Youth Contributions in Swaziland The Youth Fund has made a huge impact in encouraging the youth in starting agri related businesses, in the past two years over 2500 applications were processed and funds have been disbursed this was made possible by establishing Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs and the minister herself is within the youth age bracket. The use of ICTs by youth Graduates who are extension/development officers of the National Agriculture Marketing Board and the Swaziland Water Agriculture Development Enterprise, has made farming very easy information is shared through internet. The Lower Usuthu small Holder Irrigation Project has led to the process of establishment of a Fourth Sugar Mill which will be worth about $200M which will be accompanied by a 30 MW renewable power station. Vegetable Import data is showing a decline as a result of the increase in local production thanks to youth owned agric enterprises.

Achievements in made through youth engagement In Tanzania, the programme by SUA through SUGCO of training young graduates and current students on basic agricultural and Entrepreneurship skills and access to finance has started bearing fruits as seven have already ready received funding. This is a new programme that only started in Shambani Graduate Enterprise are products of Sokoin University, they are now exporting their milk to neighboring countries.

The Land Reform Policy in Zimbabwe has also started bearing Positive fruits, youth got access to land and production in cotton and tobacco has reached an all time high level.

In Mauritius the establishment of Agricultural youth clubs saw the number of young people participating in agri-business rising as they were motivated through these clubs, they further got incentives such as scholarships.

Overall Conclusion The use of ict tools such as facebook and twitter saw these country case studies reaching an audience of over people in less than three weeks. Social media such as Twitter and Facebook have become indispensable in the lives of farmers, Sailer Brown said. "We want to show the rest of the people who don't live in an agricultural environment how important social media is to agriculture," she said

Overall Conclusion Yet some farmers continue to resist, sticking with traditional ways of getting information. Not surprisingly, Sailer said, the younger farmers are, the more likely they will take to Twitter or Facebook. "Older guys, they can't see the value," he said. "There is a generational gap, where some of these guys have not even started using computers. To have a smartphone would be unheard of." Sailer continues to press farmers because, he said, social media can be used as another farming implement to maximize output and, by extension, profits.

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