Posted on October, 18, 2017 at 10:22 am
The government and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation have crafted a national plan to attract the youth, who form the largest segment of the unemployed Ugandans, into farming. Uganda is among the countries with the youngest populations in the world, with over 70% of its people under the age of 30.
However, the builk of the young Ugandans are unemployed and simply hopping from one place to another in search of white-color jobs. The assistant commissioner in charge of agribusiness in the agriculture ministry Yafeesi ogwang told representatives of the youth that regional incubation centres will be set up under the plan dubbed the national strategy for the youth employment in agriculture.
“We have developed a national strategy to attract more youth into agriculture. There are numerous opportunities in agriculture and a large number of our population, the youth, should take advantage of them,” He noted. He was speaking to the youth at a meeting organized by several institutions including government ministries and development partners, under an initiative for youth empowerment and transformation at Golf Course Hotel in Kampala yesterday.
The initiative is powered by the ministry of agriculture, gender, labour and social development ministry, the trade ministry, Private Sector Foundation Uganda, National Planning Authority and Uganda Manufactures Association. As part of the preliminary effort before unveiling the plan that also seeks to deliver extension services tailored for the youth, Ogwang explained that the ministry has profiled over 600 youth engaged in agriculture. “ we sent forms to the district local governments and asked the youth involved in agriculture, but we were amazed by the number of youth engaged in agriculture.
From the more than 600, we selected five youth for each region,” he added. The assistant commissioner stated that the youth agriculture champion will be selected from the farmers selected from the regions during the launch of the strategy, which is slated for October 26.
“ The initiative is being championed across the East African region. We hope to have an East Africa region agriculture youth champion soon. We intend to set up agriculture training camps, agriculture clubs and farms in schools through this plan,” Ogwang stated.
Source: New Vision | 18/10/2017 | Page 4