Youth are an instrumental part of agrifood systems, making up about half of agrifood workers globally.[1]

Despite this, representation and inclusion of youth have historically been lacking in critical spaces. In 2006, YPARD (Young Professionals for Agricultural Development) was created to change this, providing advocacy, capacity development, and networking opportunities for younger generations to sustainably transform agrifood systems.

YPARD envisions a food-secure world without poverty where young people are enabled to fully contribute. Over the last two decades, the organization has grown tremendously from an idea posed by a group of young people at a conference to a network reaching over 30,000 young people. With youth representatives from over 50 countries, YPARD strives to enable and empower young agricultural leaders through its projects and stands out as one of the only youth-led organizations focused on food systems. YPARD’s policy priorities include establishing the right to a healthy environment and people’s agency in agrifood systems. Their thematic focuses include agroecology, green jobs and entrepreneurship, access to resources, and nutrition.

Youth working in agri-food systems face several decent work challenges. Precarious work is common, and conditions include strenuous and often physically dangerous labor as well as pesticide exposure, which puts workers’ health at risk. Additionally, the lack of long-term, secure, and safe working opportunities concerns young people in the sector, as they are often unable to find stable contracts with fair wages. Gender plays a role in determining the resources youth workers have access to, such as land, and the informality of the sector continues to limit the ability of young people to thrive and provide for their families and community. Without social safety nets, lives are easily disrupted when tragedy hits and all resources must be allocated to meet a need.

Why youth? Tesdall believes that youth-led initiatives are crucially needed to train the incoming generation of agricultural workers. She also stresses the need for an enabling environment that supports and promotes youth. “Giving leadership opportunities to young people is really important because it allows us to build our skills further and gives us the ability to take charge so we can push forward the ideas and policies we believe in.” Members of YPARD are offered the chance to participate in and speak at high-level UN events, such as the ECOSOC Youth Forum and UNFCCC, as well as peer-to-peer learning and mentorship opportunities.

Each YPARD chapter has a team that facilitates varied events and projects at the country-level based on the community needs they have identified. Two examples include YPARD Uganda’s recent agroecology  Train the Trainers (ToT) workshop and YPARD’s involvement in the GP-SAEP project, which will be implemented in four countries. Representatives are able to connect their local engagement with the existing global dialogue on pressing challenges in the agrifood space, and their motivation to spur change brings the energy and drive to YPARD that has allowed it to grow in only a few years. “It says a lot about what you can do if you let young people take the reigns”, says Tesdall.

As for YPARD’s perception of the issues that most impact youth in agrifood systems, the challenges fit into four categories: education, access to productive means, access to infrastructure, and missing networks. Additionally, the decreasing quantity of overseas development aid (ODA) is a barrier, as the availability of resources likely to be allocated to youth-focused projects is becoming more limited. “There needs to be funding that goes to youth programming to help young people build continuity in their organizations and in their work”, says Tesdall. However, policies and programs should reflect the fact that “youth” is a broad classification, and different nations and government entities have varying age cutoffs for their youth-targeted policies and/or datasets. The standard UN categorization of youth is individuals ages 15-24 while some countries, such as Malaysia, include individuals up to age 40 in their youth population. As the only stakeholder group that categorically does not stay the same, there needs to be intentional investment into resources that prioritize their interests as agrifood workers. Technical instruments such as monitoring and evaluation frameworks need to incorporate youth; otherwise, critical members of the agrifood workforce are left out.

[1] https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/almost-half-the-world-s-population-lives-in-households-linked-to-agrifood-systems/en