YPARD welcomes Divine Ntiokam as YPARD Cameroon Representative. Divine is a 30 years old, very enthusiastic person about youth advocacy to ensure the proper well-being of future generations.  His dream has been to see how he could empower young people throughout the globe with regards to environmental sustainability.  He was able to get involved in the coordination of a variety of... Continue reading

Food security seems to be an ever ending topic on global discussions.  Over the last years, Africa has been subjected to a lot of interventions seeking to improve the possibility of Africa Feeding itself. Despite the fact that some progress has been made in some cases, a high number of Africans are still vulnerable to hunger. In line with this, the... Continue reading

We are glad to welcome Safiul Azam as official YPARD Country representative for Bangladesh. Azam has a dynamic research career with five years experience as an academic staff member. He conducts researches works on plant science, agricultural biotechnology and climate change with national and international collaborations. He is one of the International Climate Champion 2010 by British Council Bangladesh which geared... Continue reading

On the 21st of May, more than 150 young professionals presented their groundbreaking ideas to help end global hunger and malnutrition on the “Innovative Ideas to Feed the World – Young Professionals Conference” held at FAO Headquarters. The event was initiated by four interns of FAO and had the main goal to establish a platform where young professionals could learn from... Continue reading

More than 55 % of European farmers is over the age of 55 and wants to retire within the coming ten years. Most of them did not secure a successor yet. Currently only 7 percent of all farmers in Europe is under the age of 35 years*. However, the interest of young educated people to get involved in sustainable farming activities... Continue reading

YPARD was invited at the TOCS2013 - Technical Online Communicators' Workshop organized by CGIAR on 27-31 May 2013. Three young people in “web4agriculture” and members of YPARD were waived the fee for the workshop and therefore benefited from this unique opportunity to strengthen their technical skills and practices as young web communicators. This chance not only opened the door to a... Continue reading

This article "Investing in youth", by Courtney Paisley, YPARD, was published in the @FARMLETTER of April 2013, the newsletter of World Farmers'Organisation, p.19. “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new” Socrates We invest in something to enable it to grow.  Yet, in practice, investment is made in... Continue reading

YPARD China chapter organized a conference themed The Near Future Of Agriculture: Opportunities For The Youth on the 3rd June 2013. This conference held at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) had Prof. Ajit Maru, Senior Knowledge officer at Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) as the key speaker. It was also attended by key professionals and technical experts in... Continue reading

YPARD was invited as a partner and official representative of the youth during the CRP1.1 launching, held on 21-23 May 2013, in Amman, Jordan (CGIAR -ICARDA), to discuss the importance of the youth in the implementation of the CGIAR CRP1.1 on Dryland Systems to achieve its impact. It was only about giving some general hints on how youth’s involvement could be... Continue reading

Overcoming the threats to agriculture and food security in a changing climate requires a strong scientific evidence base to both help smallholder farmers choose resilient strategies and to guide development policy and investments. Building on a Bioversity and CCAFS (Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security) systematic review of the role of diversification in agricultural systems, the Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research is... Continue reading

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has" a saying by Margaret Mead. Every moment I keep it with me so secretly that in any difficult situation it makes me readily  refreshed and energized.  Nepal is a developing country with instable political system and governance. It... Continue reading

YPARD is proud to share its YPARD 2012 report.  This was a year of growth for YPARD where it made its mark in agricultural research for development. The strong showing by YPARD at the GCARD2 demonstrated to the international community that youth can have a strong voice and be an integral part of international events and proceedings and that they have... Continue reading

YPARD is glad to welcome a new Steering Committee member:  Danielle Nierenberg. Danielle is an expert on sustainable agriculture and food issues and has written extensively on gender and population, the spread of factory farming in the developing world, and innovations in sustainable agriculture. She currently is the co-founder of FoodTank: The Food Think Tank . From 2009-2012, Danielle was the Director of... Continue reading

In the past few weeks I had the opportunity to be a mentor to 4 great teams in the Thought for Food (TFF) Challenge (check out my experience HERE). After being a mentee in other online programmes and discussing in several networks on how a good mentoring programme should look like, I can give some inside tips & tricks for a great mentoring experience. The organization that... Continue reading

We are delighted to welcome Apeh Omede as Web4Knowledge intern at YPARD. Apeh will provide support in posting information on www.ypard.net while learning how to use Drupal Content Management System and optimize information services online. He will be working remotely 10 hours a week for 3 months (renewable). Apeh Omede is an active YPARD member from Nigeria and currently on Australian... Continue reading

A few years ago, when I first attended Syngenta`s Forum for the Future of Agriculture I found out about the TFF Challenge, a competition aimed at students of all levels that has set an objective to “feed 9 billion by 2050? by unleashing the creative potential of youth in designing innovative solutions for ending world hunger.At first, I was angry. I... Continue reading

Last week, I promised that I would write a follow-up article to the one I previously posted on “Practicing what we preach in Agriculture: Too Cool to Farm”. I had wanted to discuss the general challenges and opportunities in farming from my local perspective. However, I will not specifically dwell on the particulars of challenges and opportunities but will discuss them... Continue reading

A National Youth in Agriculture Policy Dialogue in Zimbabwe was held at Rainbow Towers in Harare Zimbabwe on the 26th April 2013 to interrogate the case study findings—for Zimbabwe, following the commissioned six country case studies in 2012 by the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Network (FANRPAN), based in South Africa. These policy dialogues are on-going in FANRPAN’s program of... Continue reading

I am a young girl from eastern part of Nepal, moreover I am very young in agriculture field although more than two third of Nepalese population depend upon agriculture to sustain their daily life. When I meet with my neighbors and other people, they usually ask me what I am studying. My answer is “agriculture”, but their perception level is different... Continue reading

On a sunny day of spring, YPARDians, students from the Department of Biotechnology & Genetic Engineering and Department of Molecular Medicine & Bioinformatics, lead by F.M. Safiul Azam from UODA had a visit to farmers` field to learn detail about agricultural practices and crop-profit status of horticulture. They have visited fields of Taro and Gladiolus, which are one of the major... Continue reading