“You are creating a miracle, Erno! – Nope, just bread for the table.” The short dialogue above ensued between my friend István Dudás and I during the autumn wheat harvest season. István who visited me with his children in the middle of the harvesting period does not relate to agriculture professionally, but he is one of the few people who respect us... Continue reading

On the 24th of October YPARD was invited to participate in an engaging #twitterchat hosted by Thomson Reuters Foundation and Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition. The question of the day was: As climate change threatens food supplies – and growing appetites threaten the climate – we want to find out how diets might change and if we need to make... Continue reading

We are delighted to welcome the incoming YPARD Cambodia national representative: Ratana Oeurn Ratana possesses a Bachelor Degree in Business Administration and a Master Degree in Rural Development and Project Management from the Build Bright University in Cambodia. Since 2012, Ratana has served as the Director of the Community-based Integrated Development Organization (CIDO), a Cambodian non-governmental organization based in Cambodia. Prior... Continue reading

Determining when your light will shine is barely impossible. It’s just a matter of patience, commitment and continuous personal development over time- not forgetting your professional development. In the African context, the means for the youth to gain accurate competencies to build their expertise and professionalism in various sectors, generally depend on the system and environment they find themselves in. In... Continue reading

On the on 28th October, 2017, YPARD Ghana organized an Agribusiness Networking Cocktail event to facilitating networking opportunities and market for its members. To achieve this aim, the drinks, food and services for the event were sourced among YPARD member entrepreneurs. The event took place at the office of the African Agribusiness Incubation Network (AAIN) in Accra. The event was supported by the team at Trotro... Continue reading

YPARD Ghana seeks to accomplish its mission of creating a collective platform to enable young professionals in agriculture to realize their full potential and contribute towards innovative agricultural development. As part of efforts to accomplish this mission, the chapter has established its working group consisting thirteen (13) members comprising of the country representative, a programme coordinator, a communication focal person and... Continue reading

Blue Skies is world renowned for delivering the highest quality, freshest possible fruit products that are harvested at their optimal maturity, and prepared in the countries where the fruit is grown. Blue Skies’ network of factories employs over five thousand people in Ghana, Egypt, South Africa, Brazil and the UK. They process fruits and make fruit juice for retailers throughout the world.... Continue reading

We are delighted to welcome the incoming YPARD Philippines Mentoring Program Coordinator: Maggie Guia M. Del Valle Maggie is a food security researcher from the University of the Philippines Los Banos. For the last two years, she has been working on a project that helps rice-insufficient communities in the Philippines address local food security issues through the institutional adoption of the... Continue reading

The average farming age in Nigeria is between 61 and 65years and the average age is 24 years . Our visit to St Mulumba Catholic College in Ile-ife an ancienty city where most household have in recent times practiced farming of some sort, was set out to educate the teenagers on the dangers of not choosing careers in agriculture and the... Continue reading

  If women had the same access to productivity as men they could increase yields in their fields by 20-30%. This alone would raise total agricultural output in developing countries (Nigeria included) by 2.5-4%, which would reduce the no of hungry people in the world by 12-17% or 100-150 million people. (FAO 2011) The statistics around food security, youth unemployment, post-harvest losses and rural development has... Continue reading

YPARD Netherlands is pleased to invite all members for a discussion event/meet&greet on November 9, 2017, from 16:00 pm to 18:00 pm, at the hosting institute KIT in Amsterdam!YPARD being a networking platform, has also invited other partner organisations to this event to join the discussions and to give its members a chance to meet and interact with other youth/agriculture based... Continue reading

Building on the positive outcomes from the Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) and the International Association of Students in Agricultural and Related Sciences (IAAS) Tropentag 2016 session YPARD Europe and IAAS Bonn decided to make it a tradition by organizing a second interactive session at Tropentag 2017 in Bonn, Germany. The session focusing on the topic “Supporting youth in agriculture:... Continue reading

On behalf of the YPARD Malawi Chapter, we would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to YPARD and the MasterCard Foundation for their financial and technical contributions towards our role modelling and vision setting event conducted at Mlomba Community day secondary school. Without their support the team wouldn’t have managed the event. Secondly, we also extend the warmest thanks to Bunda Female... Continue reading

Dear Young People, The first YPARD Jamaica Country Chapter came onboard last year with a mission to serve as a local platform that seeks to encourage and support young professionals across disciplines, parishes and backgrounds to realize their full potential and contribute towards innovative agricultural development. Our main activities have included the development of our Country Charter which pinpoints Food Safety, Security... Continue reading

Update 29 November 2017: Applications have now closed  Are you an agricultural student or young professional in the Philippines looking for growth and learning opportunities? Or are you expert in agriculture based in the Philippines who is looking for fresh partnerships and ideas? We have the perfect program for you! YPARD Philippines is holding its first Mentoring Program, which is aimed at helping... Continue reading

Few days before the World Food day (16th of October), the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition Foundation (BCFN Foundation) organized a press lunch to present the 8th International Forum on Food and Nutrition. The BCFN Foundation is a multidisciplinary research centre analyzing the causes and effects that economic, scientific, social and environmental relationships have on nutrition. It produces scientific content... Continue reading

‘Being the second man’ was my response to the question: ‘which role will you play in a team? This amongst others was one question my professor asked in order to understand my personality. Certainly, it was not the answer she was expecting and I had a feeling this was not the type of response she was used to. She continued by... Continue reading

Missed out on the webinar? Access the recording by clicking here, ( the password 5rWVkRDB ) as well as the presentation.   Date: Wednesday, October 18, 2017   Time: 3.30 - 4.30 p.m. Central European Summer Time (CEST) Click here to register for the Webinar Purpose of Webinar Increasingly development reports and media cite the global ‘youth bulge’: the 1.8 billion people between the ages of 10 to 24... Continue reading

Blogpost co-authored by Alexa Glo, John Awiel, Forget Shareka, Annet Mukamurenzi and Phenny Omondi.  According to the 2017 World Food Prize laureate, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, "The future of African youth lies in agriculture.” This can be materialized by making agriculture both profitable and "cool" for young people. Therefore there is a great need to support youth with viable initiatives to transform the... Continue reading

Most often, youth have claim that access to land is the biggest hindrance to their involvement in agriculture and agribusiness. When asked why they still find it hard to engage in agriculture, the common answer given by the youth is, “I don’t have land to start agriculture.” Land is the most valued and top factor of production and without it, indeed... Continue reading