“We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future”. This is a famous quote by the former president of the United States of America, Franklin D. Roosevelt. It’s a reflection of what youth can do to nations when well empowered to be agents of positive change. It is by far no doubt... Continue reading

The first Kenya National Youth in Agribusiness Conference was held on 18 – 20 July 2017 at the KCB Leadership Centre, Karen in Nairobi Kenya. The conference themed, “Positioning the youth at the forefront of agricultural growth and transformation” and with a slogan “Vijana Tujijenge and Agribiz” translating to “Youth, let's grow with agribusiness” was attended by over four hundred young... Continue reading

I believe the youth will drive agricultural transformation in Africa. This belief stems from my knowledge, skills and experience on a day to day basis of interacting with students. Kindly permit me to introduce myself before I share my thoughts. My name is Mukiibi Shaban and I work with a civil society organization attached to a school farm where I discharge... Continue reading

As one of the outcome of the 2017 Young African Works Summit, there was creation of groups of peers from the same country to participate in a long-term cluster coaching sessions together. The YAW2017 Rwanda cluster led by Pacifique Nshimiyimana the founder of Real Green Gold and Clarisse Murekatete co-founder of Carl Group initiated the Farming & Agri-food Systems Connekt. The... Continue reading

When: Saturday August 26th 2017 – at 15:00 Rome time (Use this tool helps you convert “Rome time” to your timezone) Duration: 90 minutes Young people around the world have innovative ideas for sustainable agricultural development but often struggle to access resources – lacking collateral, capital and connections. Our speakers who are currently involved in the Young Africa Works mentoring program ( a product of the... Continue reading

  European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment (EFITA) is the European conference dedicated to the future use of ICT in the agri-food sector, bioresource and biomass sector, the conference issupported by the collaboration of the World Congress on Computers in Agriculture (WCCA). The first EFITA was held in 1997, and the recent one held on July... Continue reading

Cluster Coaching is a follow on activity from the Young Africa Works Summit supported by the MasterCard Foundation. At YPARD, we strongly believe that empowering young people is best achieved by supporting youth to be the masters of their own destiny. Our members have so many fantastic ideas but face many struggles in implementing them due to lack of financial and... Continue reading

Let me start by wishing all of you a very happy ‘International Youth Day’. On 17 December 1999, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the recommendation made by the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth (Lisbon, 8-12 August 1998) to declare ‘August 12’ as the International Youth Day (to know more about the history read UN resolution 54/120). This initiative... Continue reading

Three YPARD Europe delegates (Hana Voca YPARD Kosovo country representative, Anna Hovhannisyan member of YPARD Armenia working team and Seher Gümü? YPARD Turkey country representative) are heading to the 28th international leadership workshop for rural youth that will be held in Herrsching, Germany from the 9th to 22nd of August 2017. The workshop is organized every other year by the Federal... Continue reading

Everything started through a regular e-mail, which sent to my YPARD Russia group, where I’ve asked the participants whether they have some ideas or wishes to perform some actions together. I got a reply from Katy Bessonova (Project manager at SIANI and YPARD Russia group member) who introduced me to the world of SIANI – Swedish International Agricultural Network Initiative. After... Continue reading

On July 20th, YPARD-Egypt participated in a workshop on the impact and response to the recent infestation of Jellyfish along Egypt’s North Coast. The workshop was organized by the Arab Federation for Wildlife Protection (AFWP), an Arab League specialized organization, in association with the Institute of Environmental Research at Ain Shams University. The main aim of the workshop was to assess... Continue reading

If you have visited the YPARD website this week, you will notice a new look to the site.If you haven't, I am referring to the look above. The reason for this new look is an upgrade of the YPARD website content management system from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7. Despite being solely a website upgrade, we have done some few adjustments on the site to... Continue reading

*UPDATE: Application deadline extended to 25 August!*Want to do Work That Matters?YPARD is the largest and most diverse network of young people in agricultural sectors.  From farmers to scientists to entrepreneurs, our members connect across disciplines, countries and regions. These youth are the future of agriculture. Our mission is to serve as a global collective platform through which young professionals can realise their... Continue reading

Africa is a blessed continent with abundance of arable land, natural resources, cultures, business potentials, investment opportunities and young people who are creative thinkers and professionals across all sectors. Agriculture in Africa is a goldmine with potentials not fully activated owing to impending challenges such as land tenure, lack of accessibility to finances, lack of youth interest in agriculture which resulted... Continue reading

Last year I worked as agriculture engineer in an apple orchard, this was my very first job as an agronomist and anything else since I never worked before.  During that period I have learned lots of things which I will bear in my mind for the rest of my life.  Here are 7 pieces of advice for those that will start... Continue reading

We are delighted to welcome the new YPARD Sweden representative Sunil Abeyasekera Sunil is currently undertaking MSc. Studies in Rural Development and Natural Resource Management at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden. His research interests focus on the relationship between food security and climate change, and its effect on local livelihoods. He is also interested in the geopolitics of waters,... Continue reading

Il est l’une des jeunes pousses de l’agriculture camerounaise. Installé à Essong-Mitsang, à 20 km au nord de Yaoundé, Olivier Mapouré conduit des mains de maître sa ferme agropastorale intégrée. Péage de Nkometou dans le département de la Lékié, on a une dizaine de minutes sur 4km de route carrossable en voiture ou à moto, et voilà la ferme agropastorale intégrée:... Continue reading

Last year, I wrote on World Youth Skills day, with an optimistic note. The World Youth Skills Day arrives yet again on 15 July 2017. Does it mean all world’s youth become skilled hereinafter? Perhaps no, until at every level actions are taken in skilling the youth and may be collective actions are required to equip youth with income and employment... Continue reading

Leading a workshop is always daunting. You can be extremely prepared but you never really know what kind of group dynamic you will meet in a workshop room.  It is therefore extremely important that a workshop facilitator knows how to effectively get people to discuss strategic and innovative ideas, progress and next steps at a workshop. After four years of facilitating several workshops... Continue reading

Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Sciences at the Jahangirnagar University (JU), Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh, and continued his academic career with an M.Sc. degree in Environmental Sciences with a major in Global Climate Changes and Environment at the same university. Over the years, his passion for learning from locals and first-hand experiences has led him to the remotest... Continue reading