Written by Wandile Sihlobo, Chief Economist at Agbiz and Presidential Envoy on Youth Day, 16 June
In South Africa’s agricultural sector, we still have a lot of work to do to support young people so they can thrive.
The idea that we heard for many years that young people are not interested in farming doesn’t hold. Anecdotally, I have met several young people over the years with a deep interest in joining the sector as professionals and some farming. There have also been studies that show that young people are interested in farming.
On both ends, support is still lacking. We need better programmes for absorbing young graduates into the sector. There are many with degrees, diplomas, and higher training certificates who message us regularly in search of opportunities.
Agribusinesses, organised agriculture, and government, among others, should develop programmes to help absorb these young people and keep them engaged and productive in the sector.
Organisations such as Karan Beef, Sernick Group, and the Sundays River Citrus Company, amongst others, already have programmes that accommodate young graduates and offer excellent training and early-career opportunities.
At the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz), we provide opportunities for a select number of students to interact with and spend time with leaders in our sector, to find work opportunities. Still, more can be done.
There is another cohort of young people who are farming and want to expand their operations but struggle to access additional land, finance, training, markets, and other resources. These challenges also require a collaborative approach to address.
Regarding access to land, the comfort comes from the reality that the Land Reform’s Beneficiary Criteria specify that young people and women must be prioritised in the land redistribution programme. As we begin distributing the government’s 2.5 million hectares of land, young people and women will be our priority in land allocation criteria.
What is increasingly clear is that agriculture is on young people’s minds. Young people don’t want agriculture to be “sexy”; they want the sector to provide valuable opportunities for them.
Therefore, we don’t need to make the sector sexy, but we must make it valuable.
Happy Youth Day!
This article first appeared on AgriView. Find it here.
Photo by Zoe Richardson on Unsplash
