Changing mindsets: Initiative seeks to make farmingcool for youth

Why is it that despite the huge untapped potential in agriculture, the youth still shun it even with the high unemployment rates in the country?

That question that keeps popping up in agricultural circles featured during the unveiling of the FarmKenya Initiative.

Speaker after speaker touched on this point.

“The average age of a Kenyan farmer is 61 years and the average age of a Kenyan youth is 18 years. How do we change this reality?” said Mr Siddharth Chatterjee, the UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative.

“So what is the problem?”

“Is it an issue of lack of credit?” KTN’s Sharon Momanyi, the moderator of the panel posed.

“Actually credit is not the issue. The reason youth shun farming is the attitude that has been cemented from an early age. From primary school, agriculture is seen as punishment. If you break rules, you are sent to the shamba. Schools need to change that so that farming is not seen as a punishment,” Prof Abukutsa said.

Another reason that compounds the problem is lack of technology. Young people see farming as laborious and not worth their time and energies.

But how can farming be made fun and cool?

“We have to make bold and deliberate steps to achieve this end. Look at how Coca Cola makes their adverts, they are so appealing. You can’t resist a cold Coke. Coke uses all means to make the drink look cool. So in agriculture, let us use the same tactics. Let’s use celebrities, success stories to potray agriculture in positive light,” the food science expert says.

This way, the youth will believe that you can be rich from farming.

The Prof proposed embracing of farming technologies in agricultural ventures. She cited use of mobile technologies like apps to relay data and other key farming information.

UN’s Chatterjee supporting this view: “I saw a technology in Israel where drones are used for watering. It works like precision bombing buts actually targeted farming. “When young people are exposed to such revolutionary technology, they start to believe that you can be rich from farming."

“Given the high unemployment rates among young people, agriculture presents the fastest means of getting rich. But to make the youth embrace it, we need to bring back the dignity of labour,” Chatterjee said.

Making a comparison with Sweden, Chatterjee, pointed out that Sweden is now old and rich, but it grew rich before it grew old. Kenya can also take advantage of its youthful age, to make wealth.

On matters policy, Prof Abukutsa had a radical take.

She stated that policy is not the issue.

“Many a times we blame the government for the food problems but there is more that we can do to change the tide... We all have a role in this. The President has put all the right policies in place for an enabling environment, but there’s little change. Kenya actually has the best policies in Africa. We have reforms, presidential directives and right regulators but little change. The issue is implementation,” she stated.