Facilitating my first global panel and raising the voice of agri youth

This week in Tanzania, I had the honour of facilitating two sessions at the African Food Systems Forum, focusing on how we can harness the voice of agricultural youth and empower them to make an impact on the transformation of our global food systems.

We heard the aspirations and day-to-day realities of six young agricultural leaders from Rwanda, Zambia, Tanzania, Nigeria, Nepal and the USA. They shared their passion for addressing issues around global food insecurity, nature degradation and climate change, through their work within the fields of farming, advocacy, science and research.

I was pleased to deliver an opening address, setting the scene as to why we are having this important conversation.

Over the past few days, we have been hearing that global demand for food will increase by 70% by 2050 and with the African population due to double by 2050, the transformation of our food systems begins here.

The focus has to be on improving local infrastructure, addressing cross-border trading issues, market access and finding ways to attract public and private investment in building processing and storage capacity, to enable Africa to increase agricultural activity but equally retain economic and nutritional value domestically.

Young people are the innovators and adopters of new technology, which is crucial in addressing challenges around food insecurity, nature loss and climate change. However there are the same issues here in Africa as there are in the UK around the perception of agriculture as a low-skilled, low-paid and high-risk sector.

It is up to young people to start challenging and changing this narrative and we can do that by raising the voice of young leaders within the agricultural space, giving them a platform to inspire others and this can be achieved by fostering partnerships with multiple stakeholders who can elevate their voice and share their stories.

A huge thank you to NGIN for giving all of us as ambassadors a voice and platform, the definition of a movement committed to driving the engagement of young people.

However, more must be done at conferences like this to better integrate the youth voice within the main agenda and not sideline their discussions away from the core event. I would like to see commitments from organisers, as well as panelist’s themselves, to question whose voices are being included in discussions, to set targets for inclusivity if we are to raise the visibility of future changemakers.

Otherwise catchy sound bites on making space for youth is nothing more than empty platitudes. Meaningful change requires meaningful commitments!