Farming can be sexy

A farmer? Me? Am way too young for that, I will consider that when I retire, say at 65. Farming is for the older people not for a young and educated fellow like me. Can’t you see that’s what you resort to if you are a failure in life and you live in the village; it’s such a dirty job for peasants.

I did not know where to begin to convince my 21 year old niece. She is studying at the University of Zambia for a Bachelor of Arts degree in public administration. She gave such an answer when I inquired if she would consider farming after graduation. So I thought engaging 2 youths with different views about agriculture would do the trick. I asked my niece to bring along her classmate.

The friend to my niece went like; I would actually like to do farming, I have been thinking about rearing goats, my aunt told me she could give me part of her farm so I can raise my own money. And you know that would help me provide food to those people that are lazy, even when they have a portion of land, they do not grow anything they would rather go to a supermarket and buy tomatoes or vegetables

This conversation helped me realise that even though my country has a lot of youths thinking agriculture is not sexy enough and should be left to the old and tired, there is an emerging crop of youths that are looking to agriculture as a viable enterprise for educated youths.

As the employment prospects in formal jobs become more scarce most youths are thinking of engaging themselves in agricultural projects that they can run as profitable businesses. They need our support, know how is everything in agriculture, appropriate technology and access to finance will make agriculture more attractive to youths.

I work as Radio programs producer for the National Agricultural Information Service in Zambia. I am Zambian.  Every week I communicate with rural communities about various topics in agriculture in my Radio show, my job therefore gives me the privilege to study research findings, break them down into easily understood packages and put it in a local language farmers understand.

I therefore play a critical role of linking Researchers or experts and rural communities. I think it is critical for me to be up to date with current global discourses in agriculture and rural development if I have to remain relevant to rural communities.

I am fascinated by social media and its power to reach out especially to younger farmers. I publish on Facebook for my organisation at https://www.facebook.com/www.nais.mal.gov/?ref=bookmarks.  I also publish a personal page at https://www.facebook.com/Humans-of-Zambia-522396084608142/  and at https://farmstoriesblog.wordpress.com/

I hold a Masters in Rural Development and Communication from Van Hall Larenstein University, Netherlands, 2014.

I am excited at the opportunity to be part of this global event in a field am passionate about. Together we can ‘Ensure better rural futures’ to help achieve ‘Sustainable agriculture in which no one is left behind’. It is action time to deliver the Sustainable development goals!

Interviewing a farmer for a TV and radio documentary in Northern Zambia; and the first pic is a close up of myself.

This blog post is part of the GCARD3 Youth blogpost applications. The content, structure and grammar is at the discretion of the author only.