Pacific Youth Need Support to Stay in Agriculture

Pacific Youth Need Family Support to Stay in Agriculture

Support from the family and wider community is critical in encouraging young people to develop as agricultural entrepreneurs.

This is a key message from a survey of young people in Fiji, Tonga and Kiribati. Spiritual guidance is also important in youth development, with the church playing a leading role in influencing young people’s behaviour and activities, especially in engaging them in agricultural activities.

The survey was conducted in November 2009 as part of the activities of the Pacific Agriculture and Forestry Policy Network (PAFPNet). It was aimed at discovering what features of their environment encourage young people to participate in agricultural activities.

It is often said that young people are our future leaders and the most productive age group of our region’s labour force. Yet many struggle to find formal employment after leaving school or college and increasing migration of young people from rural to urban areas in search of work puts pressure on already stretched infrastructure and services.

Can agriculture provide an attractive enough source of employment in rural areas to encourage young people to stay in their communities? Pacific Ministers of Agriculture at their meeting in Apia in 2008 asked SPC and partners to examine this issue in greater detail and to develop a Youth and Agriculture Strategy to build on initiatives promoting agriculture as a desirable and profitable career for young people.

The survey found young people are an important part of the informal labour force in their families and communities. In Fiji, Kiribati and Tonga, they are involved in agriculture activities that contribute to income generation as well as household food security. Youth are mostly responsible for planting and maintaining food gardens. A small number run and manage their own semi-commercial plantations. In rural Fiji, young people form groups for specific purposes, such as to build a house or fulfill a specific village or communal obligation.

Young farmers are farming areas of land ranging from a quarter acre to five acres, with the majority cultivating traditional crops with vegetables as secondary crops. Livestock agriculture is mostly limited to raising animals for home consumption.

Despite this active contribution to their families, communities and churches, many of the young people surveyed express frustration at a lack of recognition for their role. They also want relatives and community elders to support their initiatives by allowing them to share the benefits of their own endeavours and, importantly, to set aside land they can use for their own entrepreneurial activities.

The research attempted to determine what conditions are important for the success and sustainability of youth development programmes. The responses indicate that key factors include ensuring young people are actively involved in the design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of programmes and that their needs are identified and addressed. Providing a forum within the programme for young people to discuss these needs with their families and community elders is seen as a vital step in developing greater awareness and understanding in families and communities of how they can support young people starting up agricultural ventures.

Although the usual factors of better access to credit, more frequent visits by extension officers and access to affordable agricultural inputs were raised as key constraints facing young people, these are seen as secondary to the issue of a positive supportive environment. This suggests that if agricultural extension services are to better support young people in agricultural activities, they need to broaden their traditional horizons and work with communities and partners to carry out participatory appraisals of youth needs, and to provide training on empowerment, confidence building and financial literacy.

Findings from the research will provide baseline data for the development of the Pacific Youth and Agriculture Strategy 2010–2015. The strategy is aimed at encouraging and empowering young people who live in rural areas to take advantage of self-employment opportunities that can contribute to higher agriculture productivity, improved livelihoods and reduced pressure on urban centres. It seeks to identify key strategies and actions that agriculture, youth and partnering ministries can implement to support young people in their personal and professional development.

This research is an initiative of the Pacific Agriculture and Forestry Policy Network, which is hosted by SPC’s Land Resources Division, in partnership with the Human Development Programme of SPC. A draft of the Pacific Youth and Agriculture Strategy will be published soon for consultation with stakeholders.
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