The concept of agricultural innovation has been the most intriguing and interesting subjects in Africa for several reasons. Firstly, most African countries still grapple with acute poverty and food insecurity. Yet, Africa has the best resources for agriculture i.e. good land for agricultural production and hard working people. Secondly, Africa has a burgeoning young population which is expected to be innovative... More

YPARD is delighted to welcome its new YPARD representative for Senegal: Sokhna Rokhaya. Rokhaya is a 29 years old young Senegalese woman with two children. She is a sociologist and she is specialized in the field of Family, Women, Education and African Environment. She is currently a PhD student researcher at the University Gaston Berger of Saint Louis. She started her... More

I would like to share my good news to all YPARD members, and also show my great gratitude to YPARD. I had got the chance for summer school "Sustainable Agriculture and the World Food System" held by World Food System Center, ETH Zurich, August 11th - 25th 2013, in Rheinau, Switzerland. I noticed this summer school application call on www.YPARD.net in April,... More

A few decades ago, whether because of the dominance of large-scale enterprises or general apathy, a startling trend became to develop: young people never wanted to farm. Only a few percent of Nigeria's farmers are between the ages of 25 and 35; meanwhile, farmers over the age of 65 make up over 70 percent of the farmingpopulation. The mean age of... More

YPARD welcomes Divine Ntiokam as YPARD Cameroon Representative. Divine is a 30 years old, very enthusiastic person about youth advocacy to ensure the proper well-being of future generations.  His dream has been to see how he could empower young people throughout the globe with regards to environmental sustainability.  He was able to get involved in the coordination of a variety of... More

YPARD is delighted to welcome Ibrahima Sory Youla, YPARD representative for Guinea. These are some words from Ibrahima for you to get to know him: "If one were to ask my friends to describe me, it would describe me as a very pleasant young, dynamic, diverse, active, and eager for a sustainable agricultural development. I think one of my most distinguishing... More

Food security seems to be an ever ending topic on global discussions.  Over the last years, Africa has been subjected to a lot of interventions seeking to improve the possibility of Africa Feeding itself. Despite the fact that some progress has been made in some cases, a high number of Africans are still vulnerable to hunger. In line with this, the... More

We are glad to welcome Safiul Azam as official YPARD Country representative for Bangladesh. Azam has a dynamic research career with five years experience as an academic staff member. He conducts researches works on plant science, agricultural biotechnology and climate change with national and international collaborations. He is one of the International Climate Champion 2010 by British Council Bangladesh which geared... More

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) counts about 7000 agricultural scientists of which about 27% were young professionals (under 40 years of age) in 2009. Youth's share is going to increase to 48% by the end of the year 2013 making the ICAR the youngest in the world National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) (data from ASTI (FAO)).At this backdrop, with... More

On the 21st of May, more than 150 young professionals presented their groundbreaking ideas to help end global hunger and malnutrition on the “Innovative Ideas to Feed the World – Young Professionals Conference” held at FAO Headquarters. The event was initiated by four interns of FAO and had the main goal to establish a platform where young professionals could learn from... More

Few weeks ago, we students of Agriculture and Forestry University (agriculture faculty) had a visit to an Organic Farm located in nearby village. We met Chandra Parsad Adhakari, an innovative organic farmer who has more than 15 years experience in this field. Farmers establish local innovative organization having more than 125 members and they organize different training and programme like indigenous... More

More than 55 % of European farmers is over the age of 55 and wants to retire within the coming ten years. Most of them did not secure a successor yet. Currently only 7 percent of all farmers in Europe is under the age of 35 years*. However, the interest of young educated people to get involved in sustainable farming activities... More

YPARD was invited at the TOCS2013 - Technical Online Communicators' Workshop organized by CGIAR on 27-31 May 2013. Three young people in “web4agriculture” and members of YPARD were waived the fee for the workshop and therefore benefited from this unique opportunity to strengthen their technical skills and practices as young web communicators. This chance not only opened the door to a... More

This article "Investing in youth", by Courtney Paisley, YPARD, was published in the @FARMLETTER of April 2013, the newsletter of World Farmers'Organisation, p.19. “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new” Socrates We invest in something to enable it to grow.  Yet, in practice, investment is made in... More

YPARD was invited as a partner and official representative of the youth during the CRP1.1 launching, held on 21-23 May 2013, in Amman, Jordan (CGIAR -ICARDA), to discuss the importance of the youth in the implementation of the CGIAR CRP1.1 on Dryland Systems to achieve its impact. It was only about giving some general hints on how youth’s involvement could be... More

YPARD China chapter organized a conference themed The Near Future Of Agriculture: Opportunities For The Youth on the 3rd June 2013. This conference held at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) had Prof. Ajit Maru, Senior Knowledge officer at Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) as the key speaker. It was also attended by key professionals and technical experts in... More

In 2010, the idea for the ‘Siphiwe Honey Gold Farm and Preserve” project was born by 30 years old Raynard Christopher Burnside. He was unemployed seeking to be an agricultural science teacher, or any decent job related to his Bachelor of Science degree in Agribusiness Management and Master of Science degree in Tropical Animal Science and Production.In between the job applications... More

YPARD is glad to welcome Emmie Kio as remote YPARD Social Media Intern for 3 months, 10 hours a week. Emmie will take part in strengthening YPARD Social Media strategy and support information sharing and interaction through social media platforms such as Facebook group and page, Linkedin group, Twitter and more! Emmie Kio is from Kenya. She holds a bachelor of... More

YPARD is proud to share its YPARD 2012 report.  This was a year of growth for YPARD where it made its mark in agricultural research for development. The strong showing by YPARD at the GCARD2 demonstrated to the international community that youth can have a strong voice and be an integral part of international events and proceedings and that they have... More

Training on Social Media for Bridging Urban and Rural Youth has been successfully completed on May 12, 2013 at Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, (IAAS) Rampur campus in Chitwan, Nepal with more than 40 undergraduates of Agriculture and Veterinary Science as participants. The aim of the training was to provide knowledge about social media and its wise application and bridge... More