YPARD - Young Professionals' Platform for Agricultural Research for Development

It is heart warming that 80% of Malawian exporters depend on agricultural goods while the same 80% within the Malawian border depend on agriculture as a source of livelihood. However, the problem is that the produce is exported unprocessed. Studies have shown that the real wealth is in the processing. This is because there is value addition and the seller at this point dictates the price since he is not in a hurry to sale. Most of the farm output that is susceptible to post-harvest spoilage is the unprocessed produce. As a job creator, the report called for attention to be shifted from primary agriculture into "developing other segments of the value chain". This is a great recommendation because as observed above, it is the other components involved in value addition that create a greater number of jobs, which the youths will like and will be better paid. Also, since much of the system depends on rain-fed agriculture, opportunity equally is available in dry season farming with small scale irrigation, if heavy irrigation is too costly. From the report, it is revealed that "the youth indicated that with the current increasing trend of unemployment, they have no choice but to employ themselves in agriculture which unlike other forms of business has fewer barriers to entry for survival." This corroborates what we have been saying that youths perceive agriculture as the last resort which operates an "open door policy". It means if they had opportunity elsewhere, they may never have engaged in agriculture. Also, the perception of unsustainability of agriculture by youths was equally re-echoed in the statement "while the other youths, equally perceiving agriculture as a viable business initiative, they expressed doubt of the sustainable gains in the long run". The perception of agriculture as old fashioned and undesirable by youths has led them to be seeking for modernity in agriculture. I think what they are actually looking for is mechanization, wherein doing farm work is less arduous due to the use of machines, implements and gadgets. However, we should understand agriculture work will still be arduous even if you use for e.g. tractor powered plough as against using the hoe. The difference is that with the tractor, only one man will be tired as against many. Also, the one man will achieve 100 times what 100 people would have achieved within the same time limit. What is important, from my own experience and view, is what you earn from the agricultural occupation compared to what "neighbouring" occupations offer. In addition, from the report, the youths perceive they were being marginalized by government in favour of the adults. Perhaps the government focus attention on adults because the youths were not involved in farming as an occupation in the first place. Or could it be due to the land tenure ownership system prevalent in SSA, which favours adults and male who head households? Whatever the case, the option for the sideline youths is to organize themselves into groups of youth farmers. This is because groups have influence which individual persons do not posses. On the whole, the report is interesting, throwing up a lot of things capable of deepening our thoughts on the issues at stake.