Investment needed in agriculture to attract youth: UNESCO

RUNDU, SEPT. 6 – Adequate investments should be made in the agricultural sector in order to transform it into a more viable and sustainable economic area that can attract young people to return to the sector.
This was said by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Country Representative, Jean-Pierre Ilboudo at the Food Namibia Conference in Rundu in the Kavango East Region on Wednesday.
The conference is a one-day event that forms part of the Namibia Food Expo held annually in Rundu in conjunction with the Office of the Kavango East Governor, Samuel Mbambo, under Operation Werengendje. The aim of Werengendje is to assist farmers in the region to grow their own food and ensure self-sufficiency and food security.
Ilboudo explained that there is a need to come up with new strategies to address young people to go back to mahangu fields and move away from wrong perceptions that development comes from air-conditioned offices where hands need to be clean, to the mindset that dirty hands makes money.
“It is also about re-introducing the idea of cultivating mahangu and giving people the power to produce their own food in order to attain food security and economic independence,” said Ilboudo.
Similarly, he further stressed, it is important to convince and encourage people at the grassroots levels to start using participatory methodologies such as the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) scientifically proven extension tool called, Farmer Field School (FFS).
FFS is a group-based learning process where farmers carry out experimental learning activities that help them understand the ecology of their crop fields.
These activities, he continued, involve simple experiments, regular field observations and group analysis whereby the knowledge gained can enable participants to make their own specified decisions about crop management practices.
Ilboudo said the approach could represent a radical departure from agricultural extension programmes formulated by specialists from outside Namibia’s communities.
FAO is a UN agency with almost 200 member states that operates in over 130 countries worldwide, carrying international efforts to defeat hunger. – NAMPA