The Philippines Youth-in-Agriculture Mentoring Program is YPARD Philippines’ first mentoring program.  Essentially, it is a year-long scheme that aims to bring together students and young professionals in agriculture, to match them with agriculture experts from various subfields that YPARD Philippines focuses on in its youth-in-agriculture agenda: academy, research, extension, business and policy/governance. Throughout the program, mentors will meet with their mentees... More

As the new YPARD Serbia country representative in exploring potentials for partnerships with associations and organizations with similar cause as YPARD’s; making better standing for young farmers, I attended the third International conference on “Young farmers in Serbia and EU” organized by the Serbian association of young farmers. At the conference Jannes Maes, presidents of the Serbian, Czech, Hungarian and Croatian... More

Twenty-seven-year-old Paul Zaake is co-founder and executive director at Rakai Environmental Conservation Programme (RECO), a not-for-profit organization based in Uganda’s southern Rakai region, and member of the Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) network. To mark International Day for Biological Diversity, celebrating 25 years of action for biodiversity today, we asked him why biodiversity is important - and how youth can... More

Since 2012, the Swiss chapter of Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) is helping to boost youth's participation in agriculture, food, and environmental issues in Switzerland. YPARD Switzerland is seeking a new Country Representative (CR) from July 2018 or upon agreement. Do you bring along a young, innovative and fresh spirit? Then this is the position for you! Becoming a CR... More

No, no, no – you won’t have to literally garden in the moonlight. That would be inconvenient.  Using the lunar cycle to pinpoint seed planting dates for healthier plants and more bountiful harvest is an age-old practice still used to this day. It might not be the most popular trend right now, but it is based in science and suggested by... More

Research is essential for increasing knowledge and to establish facts and principles - data is the main ingredient.  As science and technology are getting updated, research is undertaken at the micro level and therefore various complex and large amount of data is needed to come to an accurate conclusion. But the traditional data processing application software is inadequate to deal with... More

It is believed that healthy, energetic and fresh young minds will build a healthy nation for tomorrow.  Keeping this into concern, children of today’s age need more priority regarding health and nutrition. Since the mid-90s to the present, Child malnutrition has significantly declined but chronic malnutrition is still high in developing countries, like Bangladesh.with 36% of children being affected worldwide.   While in... More

Nepal being a diversified country in terms of culture, customs, religion, ethnicities, geographical habitat, the feeding habit of the Nepalese and the food they consume obviously differs accordingly.  No doubt, Nepal is an agricultural country and different agricultural products have unique and significant nutritional values and agriculture is the prime source of food.  Despite the diversified food production and consumption habit,... More

The world has changed and so has climate. In the past years we have experienced dramatic change in climate in line with increasing temperatures, changed in rainfall patterns, high levels of carbon emission and green house gases emissions. The world forest has suffered harm and has continued to face high rates of deforestation. These changes have seen the world agricultural practices... More

Awareness about agriculture is steadily gaining momentum among young people in Africa- particularly in Nigeria. Concrete efforts are being made by governments and the private sector including, NGOs and civil societies, on possible ways to engage and make youth the main drivers of agricultural transformation in Africa. Participation of youth in agribusiness along the agricultural value chain has been identified as... More

Dear YPARD community, I would like to present you the Let’s Food Cities project, launched in September 2017 by the French NGO Let’s Food.  To tell you a bit more about why we initiated this project, let us tell you more about our background and how this idea appeared to be the right thing to us. Anna Faucher, now president of... More

Rumi, the great poet is quoted saying “Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.” This aptly describes what the YPARD community felt upon the departure of Courtney Paisley having attained the age limit to be involved in a leadership position at YPARD.... More

The recent discussion on issues pertaining to food security and adequate nutrition proves to be very important as it has a bearing on human survival. It has become increasingly important as food security and nutrition security are essential aspects of the development goals aimed at sustainable, social, economic and human development. But did you know? … eight hundred million people still... More

Agriculture has long been perceived as a profession for the hopeless- especially unemployed youth in the society. Several years ago, people only practised agriculture as mere engagement and, as a societal norm but the recent trends in the agricultural industry has made it clear that the opportunities in agriculture cannot be overemphasized. There are many basic needs of life but food... More

We are delighted to welcome the new YPARD Serbia country representative Julijana El Omari. Julijana is a graduate from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, Serbia with a Bachelor's degree in journalism. In her last investigative journalism exam, in, she made a television video story about the complaints written by farmers after they have been turned down for governments agricultural... More

The Department of Food Technology and Quality Control (DFTQC) in association with Nepal Food Scientist and Technologist Association (NEFOSTA) organized three days long “Food Fair” with the aim of promoting traditional foods from Nepal.  Furthermore, the Food Fair was organized to provide information about the nutritional value of local food and the health benefits. The fair was organized from 23rd to... More

According to the recent report by Nigerian Population Commission (NPC)  Nigeria's population has officially hit 198 million, with the majority (51%) living in the urban areas. Is this supposed to be a blessing or a challenge for the agri-food sector? I would say it is both.  It is a challenge, because there are now more mouths to be fed by the... More

The world’s existing network of extension agents may not be enough to disseminate farmer-to-farmer training videos to reach the millions of people who need new ideas. In general yield production videos for farmer become more common by various sorts of actors in communities. However, the multi-faceted issues that farmers face during production, need to be overcome for the sustainable development in... More

There is an increase in the demand for food. The global food security challenge is straightforward: by 2050, the world must feed 9 billion people. The demand for food will be 60% greater than it is today.  How do we ensure that there will be healthy food on the table every day for the next century? Africa’s workforce in Agriculture The UN DESA... More

While having a cup of hot chocolate, I close my eyes and fall into memories. I remembered my trip to a chocolate production farm – Como llegar, in Talamanca Region, Costa Rica during YES lab (here, here and here you can find previous blogs on this topic) in 2017. We went there to see an indigenous tribe Bribri (just few people... More