YPARD Pakistan fosters Youth Involvement in Agricultural Development during the Pakistan Agricultural Exhibition

A three-day “Pakistan Agricultural Exhibition” was held at Punjab’s second largest exhibition center set up at the University of Agriculture Faisalabad – Pakistan, from May 28-30, 2014. In this technological and innovative era, the event was designed as a launch pad for international and national organizations to penetrate in the highly expanding and lucrative Pakistani markets.

More than 15,000 people visited this exhibition, which includes different international and national delegates, representatives from NGO’s and multinational agricultural organizations, families, farmers and senior decision makers across Pakistan. Students of various schools, colleges and universities also participated and were very much interested to know about YPARD’s role in agricultural development. Likewise, many people from Pakistan’s leading agricultural institutions, food and equipment supply companies from every spectrum of the agribusiness sector under a single platform visited the exhibition.

Time for innovation

Core YPARD members (Young Professionals for Agricultural Development) Pakistan-Team displayed a stall in this exhibition to create the awareness among youngsters on serious food security’s challenges over the coming year. Different volunteers shared their ideas and views about current agricultural issues and also raised their strong voices to contribute towards the betterment of agricultural world with some innovative thoughts.

YPARDians present at the exhibition distributed literature and brochures among visitors to introduce this movement and motivate them to be part of YPARD. All visitors, especially students from various institutes, bared special attention towards YPARD activities and participated as well in the group discussions. Few of them shared their opinion about YPARD by mainly highlighting how young people see agriculture as a work for poor people, or a career for people with no education or lack of awareness and skills.”

Agriculture… A symbol of poverty?

Young people both in urban and rural areas revealed that agriculture is the symbol of poverty and a small scale career while there is no choice for other jobs. However, after having read YPARD’s mission as well as YPARD-Pakistan’s corporate profile, they all realized the importance of agriculture in our daily lives and economical position in our GDP.

Years ago, we used to think that agriculture would remain an old fashioned sector that would not generate income for our living. However, the youth starts to be completely aware of the role that Information Communication Technology plays in agriculture. With the rapid development of ICT that has also exposed rural youth into a fast moving world, even those who wish to engage in agriculture could apply during the every day’s work modern agriculture that use more technical skills and less energy to produce.

Another step forward

The YPARD Pakistan Team had a great time with the youth in promotional activities at our YPARD booth in Faisalabad Agricultural Exhibition. In order to improve youth involvement in agricultural development, we will keep motivating the youth and farmers for agriculture sustainability in Pakistan by organizing awareness campaigning program under the supervision of YPARD-Pakistan CR.

Picture credit: Shahla Salah