Engaging youth through agriculture
Development refers to the growth of someone or something as to bring about positive changes or advancement. It follows therefore, that this definition of development is no more than the meaning of democracy, which allows for the participation of all in the administration of public trust through representation to ensure good governance. Unfortunately however, many […]
Development refers to the growth of someone or something as to bring about positive changes or advancement. It follows therefore, that this definition of development is no more than the meaning of democracy, which allows for the participation of all in the administration of public trust through representation to ensure good governance.
Unfortunately however, many nations especially in Africa and Asia that practice democracy as a system of government are obviously not on the path to development. Of course, bad leadership/corruption among other reasons associated with culture and perhaps geography and demography have contributed to the slow pace of development in this part of the world.
This however, is not to suggest that there have not been attempts at fostering sustainable development in some parts of the continents. In Africa for instance, democracy has come to stay in Nigeria as its been seventeen years since its return without interruption. Thus, despite all the challenges of especially bad leadership the nation has been facing, the return to democracy has evidently speed up the pace of development.
Compared to what it was in 1999, Nigeria has witnessed development in terms of communication, urban renewal and few other infrastructures such as road. It’s therefore noteworthy that were we under a dictatorship, this little wouldn’t have been achieved. And the good tiding is, in spite the multi-faceted problems the nation is facing, efforts are relentlessly put in place by several individuals, NGOs and civil society organizations to find solutions to our problems as they prevail.
The thinking today is that the absence of youth in governance is one of the main reasons why development is on a slow pace here. This may be true given that the youth are a important segment of any society. They constitute the productive class and therefore any attempt at not recognizing and therefore neglecting them would be utterly dangerous to the development process of any nation.
Consequently, efforts are daily being made to see how government and the youth can collaborate to cause effective development in the agricultural subsector of the economy. Of course, for states that were blessed with vast arable land, fostering viable development translates to giving priority to agriculture so as to first attain food sufficiency.
Indeed there is no gainsaying the fact that viable development starts with food sufficiency and ends with industrialization. At elementary level, agriculture is known to be the cultivation of crops and rearing of animals for the use of man. This indubitably provides thousands of employment opportunities for both the skilled and unskilled labor.
Agricultural input supply, farm production, post-harvest activities, processing and marketing involve a lot of human resources and therefore not only create jobs but also cause instant socioeconomic development. All this meanwhile, will require political will to happen as policies and legislations are necessary.
And since the youth are to participate in this development agenda, they should be involved in the policy making which must as a matter of importance identify them as the target beneficiaries of the project. This will help in no small measure at implementation stage when the success of the project will be at stake.
Mukhtar Jarmajo, Abuja