28 October, Online All day long my FACEBOOK news feed has been happily buzzed by “Love” messages. The group of young professionals we had put together for what became a once-in-a-Lifetime-social reporting experience, were celebrating! It was all natural that they use social media as their party ground. That is without mentioning that they are all spread all around the world... More

YPARD is conducting an external review in order to evaluate the progress of YPARD with an emphasis on the last four years, since its last external review in 2009, and to measure YPARD’s progress against the 2010-2014 business plan.This survey is an important part of the review: your experiences, observations and opinions as a member of YPARD are important for us... More

There are more young people in the African population than ever before. In fact, approximately 70 percent of the over 1 Billion people living in Africa are under the age of 30! What’s more, fewer and fewer young people are attracted to agriculture, or see it as a viable future for themselves. Emmanuel Ngenge Ngeh, Cameroonian founder of the Young Farmers... More

What comes to your mind when you think of a farmer? What comes to mind for most of us is an old man, dressed in overalls, smelling dirty, and chewing on a straw. Though farmers are considered important to food production and the economy of any nation, youth have little interest in agricultural careers. Nowadays most people equate agriculture with farming... More

By Courtney Paisley and Marina Cherbonnier YPARD was extremely active in this years' AASW.  From identifying many excellent active youths for participation, organising a YPARD side event, participating and contributing to other AASW side sessions to social reporting of the event on-site and online.  The three side events with a strong youth component include the Gender and Youth Side Event, the... More

In the viewpoint of economic analyst, today's world can be divided into developed and developing countries with significant differences as in development of science and technology,'' shared by Prof. Dayananda Bajracharya, former vice-chancellor of Nepal Academy of Science and Technology(NAST). The key element holds with adequate scientific discussions to affect the positive change. And here are silver linings; scientific symposium organized... More

The 6th Africa Agriculture Science Week with the theme;- “Africa Feeding Africa through Agricultural Science and Innovation” was held between the 15th and 21st of July 2013 at Accra, Ghana and put together by the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA). It was an event  that I was happy to have participated in. You might wonder why I have said... More

Happy International Youth Day 2013 ! IYD is celebrated every year by the UN on the 12 August. The theme for this year is ‘Youth Migration: Moving Development Forward’. We asked young students and professionals in agriculture to share with us their experiences and insights about youth migration and its relation to Development. We particularly invited them to discuss rural-urban migration and... More

Last May 2013, YPARD was solicited by the Chicago Council to invite some Young Professionals to take part in the live blogging and tweeting of The 2013 Global Food Security Symposium. A young live blogger would watch a panel discussion or a keynote address and then would write up summary and key points to be posted on the Chicago Council’s Global... More

“Are these roasted bananas?” I asked, as my colleague Ado looked on nodding against me. “Let's ask her”, he said.  It's amazing! Many different types of fresh agriculture products are sold along the streets of Accra. All the lady could tell us was that the bananas like fruits are called plante according to her pronunciation. One would wonder the destiny and... More

Blog post co-authored by Johanna Gysin, Martina Graf Herrsching a.A., Germany Under the motto “Prepare for action” the 26th International Leadership Workshop for Rural Youth is held this year from the 15th of July to the 2nd of August in the House of Bavarian Agriculture in Herrsching am Ammersee in Germany. More than 50 participants from 33 countries and 5 different... More

  Cooperation in agriculture often seems to be synonymous with farmers’ cooperatives. In fact, the definition of an agricultural cooperative is “a type of cooperative that unites agricultural producers for production or other activities needed by the members (such as processing, marketing of output or supply of the means of production).” Also through the actions of different stakeholders in the global... More

If we look into Africa‘s recent history, we see that this part of the world fits perfectly, at this time, into the growth limits stated by Reverend Thomas Malthus more than 200 years ago. With a population doubling every 25 years and an ecological decline hard to slow down, Africa is about to reach its “limits of growth”. But this is not a reason to despair. At the Forum... More

Blogpost by Marina Cherbonnier and Peter Casier, two AASW social reporters. Blog post originally posted on The FARA-AASW Blog. Meet Marina Cherbonnier, the YPARD Web and Communications Officer. I call her a “can-do-it-all” ball of energy. She has a background in ICT4D (University of Manchester, UK) and in information and documentation sciences (UCO, Angers, France). She previously was an intern at... More