Government outlines plan to involve young people in agriculture
The Ministry of Agriculture in partnership with the Ministry of Education have laid out a strategy to involve students in agriculture while still in school with the purpose of reducing unemployment among the youths.
The revelations were made by minister of state for Agriculture Fred Bwino Kyakulaga during the launch of a new annual national agricultural show to help popularize agriculture and increase productivity in the sector.
He said the move shall contribute to attracting, retaining and promoting young people below the age of 39 years into agriculture
Kyakulaga said this will provide a platform for continuous knowledge transfer and skilling of young people through practical demonstrations, practical training, youth innovation competitions, debates and youth in agriculture-oriented policy dialogues.
“We shall provide a coordinated platform for harnessing the interest and use of ICT based innovative digital tools by young people to influence their participation in agriculture value chains,” he said.
He said youth unemployment is one of the major socio-economic policy challenges facing Uganda’s economic growth and development today.
“Unless this problem is amicably addressed, it will peg back Uganda’s ambition to reduce poverty and attain a middle-income status by 2030. Over 92% of the youth in employment are poor and they represent some of the biggest cohorts when it comes to extreme poverty,” he said.
Uganda has one of the youngest and most rapidly growing populations in the world according to the Uganda Population Council, with most of its population being under 25 years of age. There are 7,310,386 youth from the ages of 15-24 years of age living in Uganda.
Many of the youth, especially students and graduates still grapple with unemployment mainly due to lack of experience and connections.
In bid to solve the challenges of unemployment, Kyakulaga said they are now joining hands to start training the young people while still in school.
