Samkeliso Hlatshwayo Receives 2nd Place (17 to 24) in the UN Resident Coordinator's Essay Competition

The Future We Want, The UN We Need

Adoption of sustainable modern agricultural practices combined with the engagement of women, and young people in agriculture have been the most globally discussed topics recently and have a huge potential in achieving development goals. I strongly believe that the future prospects and riches of Africa lies in agriculture. So how can the world build a healthier, wealthier, prosperous, peaceful and more harmonious society?

According to the United Nations website, climate change has been identified as one of the most defining concerns of today’s world and has hugely reshaped or is in the process of altering earth’s ecosystems. It has disrupted food productivity and affected food quality causing a drastic rise in poverty and hunger. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has specified conventional agriculture as a major contributor to climate change. To address this critical issue, organic agriculture is the ultimate solution. It relies on biodiversity, ecologically sustainable farming techniques (such as compost, biological pests and diseases control) which have a holistic approach, protecting and benefitting the environment, society and of course maximizing human health. As a ‘greenpreneur’ who is strongly advocating for sustainable modern agriculture and youth economic empowerment, I have just initiated a Go Green community project at Nkamanzi (Matsapha) which aims to bring environmental awareness on the dangers of conventional farming to the ecosystems and human health; and encourage smallholder farmers to engage in environmentally friendly farming practices and operations.

 “There are some 500 million smallholder farms worldwide, more than 2 billion people depend on them for their livelihoods. These farms produce about 80 per cent of the food consumed in the world.” – Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development. It is high time the UN adopts this model to promote sustainable development initiatives particularly amongst the poor and small scale farmers through participatory and innovative initiatives. Smallholders can feed the world. Moreover, promoting the adoption of Climate-Smart Agriculture in communities can enhance climatic resilience on farming practices - reason being, farmers, particularly smallholders, have limited access to existing adaptation solutions that could help them in coping with acute weather patterns and climate change, which in turn affects food security, nutrition and household incomes. Therefore, prioritizing community-led sustainable empowerment programs can play a pivotal role in building capacity to secure their own food, nutrition and income at household level to alleviate poverty and food shortages.

“Seventy percent of employment in Africa comes from agriculture, so you can argue that, in Africa, agriculture and economy are synonymous. In effect, you cannot modernize the economy in Africa without engaging young people to venture into agriculture” – Prof. Calestous Juma. Women and young peoples’ involvement in agripreneurship is the absolute key to combat youth unemployment and propel Africa out of poverty.  However, most young people still perceive agriculture as old-fashioned and not a successful business prospect.  As an upcoming young agriculture opulent magnet I vehemently believe that agriculture has a future and that with the infusion of new technologies in the sector, agriculture will always be an intelligent endeavor and that many young people could secure a prosperous future in agripreneurship. New technology allows agripreneurs to do much more with much less as the environment demands thus making farming ‘cool’ and fashionable to young people. For instance, The Kingdom of Eswatini in collaboration with Royal Science and Technology Park can establish an innovation hub tailored for supporting and promoting women and youth participation in agriculture. One of the ways to do that is to equip, train them and give them opportunities to access ICTs and information.

Furthermore, the combination of introducing technology and innovative agricultural policy can really assist in attracting more young people and women to venture into the agricultural value chain. For instance, cutting out import duties and VAT on key agricultural implements/ technologies, tax rebates on agricultural enterprises and startups can make a big difference; even subsidizing data that allows farmers to access more information such as climate information can significantly improve the sector’s resilience besides of course enabling them to have video conference meetings where mutual hurdles can be discussed.

Another most critical challenge most young aspiring and established agripreneurs are facing is to connect with each other and to one another. If we really want to shape and build a vibrant revolutionary agripreneurship ecosystem, collaboration is key.  A network must be formed where both young budding and established farmers from all over the world meet to: exchange skills, ideas, knowledge; tackle all the diverse agripreneurship issues; mentor and coach each other; invest or raise funds to support each other and  trade goods within the network.

Organic agriculture is the future. Young people are the future. Technology is the future. We are the future. Let us shape our future together!