Why more youth should take up agriculture courses

Anne Nyaga is co-founder 4-H Kenya and is currently Embu County’s Minister of Agriculture, Co-operative Development, Livestock and Fisheries.

Briefly share your background and how you developed a passion for agriculture.

My passion for agriculture developed as a result of exposure to agriculture during my formative years. I grew up in the farm and was a member of the 4-K club. Importantly, my parents who were officers of the Ministry of Agriculture played instrumental role in shaping my interest in agriculture. My dad actually gave me land to practice and experiment on. I studied Biomedical Science and Technology but turned down my scholarship offer because it came at a time when I wanted to venture into commercial agriculture. Prioritisation and singularity of purpose made me turn down the scholarship and I haven’t regretted it.

Some people do not consider agriculture to be a marketable course. What are the misconceptions that people have on the agriculture-related courses?

Majority of youth view agriculture as a backbreaking, ‘dirty’ profession without dividends. Most youth consider agriculture to be unattractive due to low returns and more so due to lack of role models in the sector. yet we can not blame them; most farmers use outdated farming methods resukting in low returns, which doesn’t lead to decent livelihoods. Parents and teachers have accelerated the misconceptions by associating farming with failure. There is also lack of and/or misinformation on opportunity in agricultural value chains. The biggest blow to agriculture, in my view, was its removal from primary education curriculum in 2000.

What are the options available for students who have studied agriculture and are jobless?

I believe that an agriculture graduate, whether certificate/diploma/degree holder, should not be jobless. This is because farming is by itself an economic activity. They should strive to turn subsistence farming into a business. Agriculture should not just be a culture as its name suggests but a business as well. The government also has a huge responsibility to help youth identify various county-specific or regional agricultural opportunities in all value chains and help them realise business opportunities. The youth especially when skilled, organised into service co-operatives are able to enhance solution providence in the agricultural sector.

Is there a gap between what is taught in the agricultural-related courses and what is required in the job market?

Yes, most of the agricultural related courses are more theoretical than practical. The curriculum has not been dynamic and is not tailored to the Kenyan realities hence has not incorporated emerging agricultural technologies, mechanisation and practical approaches.

Are the courses the solution we need to change the food security problems that we have in Kenya?

Yes, the upgraded courses are part of the solution. The courses are just part of the capacity-building. Land access and use and resource availability need addressing. Training and educational institutions should develop robust agriculture curricula that addresses the emergent and dynamic challenges in agriculture through consultations with agricultural firms and best practices globally. This consultative, bottom-up approach in curricula development will ensure that we only have graduates with practical, job-relevant and market-ready skills.

What is 4-H all about?

The 4-H Foundation Kenya was established in 2014 to complement the efforts of National and County governments as well as community initiatives aimed at attracting young people to the agricultural sector. It was also started with the aim of reviving the 4-K movement in Kenya. The name (4-H) represents four personal development areas of focus for the movement: head, heart, hands, and health. The 4-H Kenya is one of 73 independent country programmes committed to the Global 4-H Charter. 4-H in Kenya dates back to the colonial period where 4-K clubs existed in every public primary school and members transitioned to Young Farmers’ Clubs in Secondary School.  In the 1990s, the 4-K movement in Kenya was the largest globally, outside North America, but dwindled interest in agriculture saw a majority of clubs cease to exist by the year 2000. So far, the 4-H Program has been implemented in eight counties in Kenya resulting in 400 4-H clubs with 15, 000 Members, 290 patrons and 40 trainers of trainers.

As the CEC Agriculture Embu County, What are some of the practical solutions that you are implementing in the County in terms of Agriculture and equipping the youth?

We have revived and rebranded over 70 4-KClubs in Embu County and are on an expansive programme to cover all schools. The Embu County Youth in Agribusiness Strategy 2018-2022 will be launched in February 2019 to address the county-specific challenges facing children and youth between age group of six to 35 years. We hope to bring in the youth in complementing the efforts of aging adults working in the agricultural sector, through equipping them with the relevant skills to provide solutions in the identified value chains. We also want to inculcate the culture of farm production in children by ‘catching them young’. We have mapped out certain value chains that require youth intervention. We are, for instance, training youth on technical skills such as artificial insemination, soil testing, business management, marketing, crop husbandry such as pruning, spraying, setting up of clonal gardens in coffee value chain. We then encourage them to form service co-operatives, link and market them to farmers for them to provide relevant business advisory services. We are helping the youth identify various county specific/regional agricultural opportunities and give them grants to kick start the identified agribusiness activities. Additionally, we have consolidated farmers in cooperative and cooperative to unions which accords them better bargaining powers. In dairy industry, we bought 18 milk coolers for aggregation of milk produce. Running these coolers requires technical skills, hence they are mostly run by the youth.

Your organisation is spread across 73 countries globally. How does Kenya compare to other countries?

Agriculture-related issues are heterogeneous from one country to the other. Developed countries would have different challenges to ours hence require different policy interventions in agriculture. However, there is homogeneity of 4-H programs and toolkits globally.  All the 73 chapters closely cooperate to actively perform Global 4-H Network’s activities and carry out advocacy with their respective governments in solving not only agricultural challenges, but general youth development.