YPARD India in collaboration with APAARI, TAAS and several other organizations from Asia-Pacific Region organized the Regional Workshop on “Motivating and Attracting Youth in Agriculture (MAYA)”.
The workshop was attended by 227 participants from India and some South Asian countries (Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka) representing the national agricultural research systems (NARS), private sector, civil society organizations (non-government organizations (NGOs) and farmer organizations (FOs), progressive farmers, entrepreneurs, policy planners, Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Centers, and development departments. The main objectives of the conference were to:
- assess the role of youth in accelerating overall agricultural growth,
- provide exposure to various successful entrepreneurship models,
- understand the role of youth in rural advisory services and for knowledge linking farmers to markets,
- suggest needed policy reorientation to motivate and attract youth in agriculture, and
- explore the possibility to build a regional platform for collaboration and partnership.
One of the major recommendations was to form 4 regional platforms on youth in Agriculture across for geographical regions of India i.e North, West, East and South India. Click download to access the full document.