YPARD China Steps Up!

The first event organized by YPARD China was a strong start from a very important region.  Young professionals from different parts of China undertook long train journeys to be part of a momentous occasion and the first of its kind for YPARD in China! 

The day started out with many distinguished speakers from the hosts, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) and beyond.   The meeting was set to start by 9am on the 5th June 2012, and by 8:30am the lecture hall was already full of young Chinese professionals, eager to hear what the presenters had to say on the topic of youth and agriculture. Different presenters included senior members of CAAS, the director of IFPRI in China, the YPARD coordinator, Oxfam China and some young professionals including a successful young entrepreneur who had graduated from University at CAAS and had gone on to set up his own successful upmarket tea farm.

As China is such a large country, it was decided that activities should be organized on a sub-regional level, as needs vary widely across the country. During the event, two representatives from the Shenyang Agricultural University and Beijing Academy of Agricultural and Forestry gave a presentation on what types of activities they were planning to do in their region to strengthen the voice of young professionals active in agricultural development.  They were presented some funds from YPARD China and will now work on these activities through the YPARD group at their University. 

The afternoon of the event saw the young professionals in the room break into three small groups to discuss how to improve and what they were looking for in YPARD and strategies for moving ahead in China. 

Some of the issues highlighted by the groups include;

• Some Chinese YPs are limited in applying for different opportunities provided by YPARD because of language constraints as well as less familiarity with the application process and how one writes a successful application.  YPARD China should consider ways on how we can improve the capacity of Chinese YPs to take advantage of such opportunities.
• There are not as many opportunities provided in the Asia region when compared to Africa. While some reasons for this is because of greater funding provided for opportunities in Africa from the donor community, it was decided that all YPARD China and YPARD Asia members should work to provide information onto the website from opportunities that they know of as well as sharing their sources of information with the coordination unit.
• It was stressed that YPARD China members should take advantage of the global nature of the YPARD network in expanding their contacts and even potentially submitting joint proposals with other youths from different regions.

The day finished with a lot of enthusiasm and confidence in the success of YPARD China becoming a strong player in the YPARD community.

The day’s event was coordinated with the incredible organization by a group of dedicated YPARD China young professionals who spent weeks and months working hard to ensure that the event proceeded without a hitch. It is through the dedication and hard work of such young professionals that we are confident that YPARD China will continue to do good things for YPs in ARD.

A big thanks to the hard work of the YPARD China representative Bi Jieying and her team.  Also a big thanks to CAAS for the support that they provided for the day to happen.