Over 1,000 youth fromacross the country have benefited from a project designed to encourage them to identify potentials available in the agricultural sector in order to stimulate self reliance and employment.
The five year project dubbed; national strategy for youth involvement in agriculture (NSYIA) was launched in 2016 to respond to the huge demand of employment for youths who make 54 per cent of the country’s total population according to statistics from National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Revelian Ngaiza, national youth agricultural investments development coordinator in the ministry of agriculture told The Guardian in an interview that the major focus of the project is see majority of young people utilizing fully all the potentials available in the agriculture.
“The project also aimed at transforming negative mindset among youth that agriculture sector is for those who ‘failed in schools’, this notion should be removed. We also wanted to train, capacitate and support young people to chip in the agri-bussiness sector for their development,” he explained.
Ngaiza said youths are potential group in the country which needs to be empowered in order to contribute effectively to the growth of national economy.
“As part of the initiative, today we are hosting the youth symposium in Dar es Salaam to welcome youth who are willing to engage in the programme in order to contribute to the development of individual economy.”
He said the one-day symposium will bring on board more than 200 from Dar es Salaam, Lindi, Mtwara, Coast region, and Morogoro the event will provide opportunity for youth to get new opportunities of investment.
The event is important because it will give chance for youth to present their recommendations and goals which were gathered from across the country.
He added that it is disappointing to see that 70 of elders at the age of 50-65 are the one who implement agriculture with majority of powerful young people crying of life hardship.
“The government has decided to come up with a strategy to make sure that youth are given enough opportunity in the agriculture sector in order to make sure they add value to national economy,” he added.
Revocatus Kimario executive director of the Sokoine University graduate entrepreneurs cooperative (SUGECO) shared his sentiment that the project has yield a better results whereby a lot of youth have been motivated to engage in the project.
“There are several youth who got the opportunity for internship in Egypt to learn about horticulture activities, they are have now employed other youth enjoying benefit from agriculture sector,” he said.
Kimario said the through the conference, a lot of youth have been able to be connected with government authorities to get land, but also to financial institutions to get loan.
According to him, the project has assisted linking a number of young people with experts in agriculture to gain more skills and capacity in several thematic areas in order to be active in their activities.
