#YouthInAg

Bad infrastructure and roads, a continuous threat of armed conflict, and high and arbitrary taxes make it difficult to get the coffee across the border and obtain a fair price for it. Wannes Slosse, a Belgian PhD-student at the University of Ghent, is examining Rikolto-supported coffee cooperatives in the highlands of the Eastern provinces of the DR of Congo.

What happens when you bring together a group of students from different courses under the guidance of experienced coaches to tackle a social problem? You get great ideas. And one of those ideas is about to hit the shelves: Délicé, a granola made from the surplus from processing cranberries.

Jessica is a cocoa producer, mother and community leader. She has been promoting generational change in the farmers' organisation Fortaleza del Valle for a few years now, as well as the improvement of cocoa plantations. How does Jessica see the future of the organisation with more women leaders like her? Read her vision in this story.

Mambasa, DR Congo has an enormously rich biodiversity. But poaching and massive deforestation for agriculture threaten the region. The young farmers of Cacao Okapi opt for a radically different approach. You can taste that approach in a Belgian-Congolese gourmet chocolate from Veliche: Okapi 65.

We were supposed to interview two young farmer members of the cooperative in April 2020 with a camera crew. Unfortunately, not one but two crises postponed our visit with Rikolto: first the Covid-19 crisis, and in November, two severe hurricanes that caused irreparable damage in Central America. We arrived on Yamileth and Santiago's land nine months later. This is their story of resilience.

At Rikolto, the question ‘What will we eat tomorrow?’ is at the core of our work. One specific aspect of this question is ‘Are we still going to have farmers, not only in terms of the workforce but also people who have sufficient knowledge of both agriculture and technology and who are skilled in transferring this knowledge to future generations?'

The seed of the Sur-Siendo Cooperative was planted by several people, among them a 28-year-old young man, Diego Viturco. Learn about its history and how it has been contributing to hundreds of families having a healthy and economically accessible food alternative in southern Quito.

Jorge Flores, coordinator of youth projects in Nicaragua, shares his personal experience on how you can empower other young people while working on your own empowerment.

Generation Food was launched on Wednesday 25 September. The result of a collaboration between the province of Flemish Brabant, Boerenbond, PROEF, EIT Food, KU Leuven, UCLL, KBC, City of Leuven and Rikolto. The partnership wants to combine their expertise and network in this way to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship.

Indonesian farmers are ageing. How can we save the country's agrarian industry and food security? This is not just a question to ponder, but to act upon. Millennials on the Move encapsulates our strategies, activities, progress, lessons and achievement on how we work to rejuvenate the ageing agriculture sector.

Rikolto hosts 40 young people from the Uganda, Kenya, DRC, Tanzania and Rwanda in a workshop to learn more about food systems in East Africa and how to make them more sustainable. The workshop is organised in collaboration with Young Professional for Agricultural Development (YPARD), and is supported by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

YPARD in collaboration with FAO and Rikolto will organise an interactive workshop where young farmers can interact, learn and share best practices, with a focus on strengthening rural and urban linkages for sustainable food and agriculture.

How do you unlock the – often hidden – potential of rural and urban youth? In three workshops, young people from Peru, Tanzania and Indonesia were challenged to dream about their future food system. Read more about the methodology that was used and the insights of the workshop leaders.

A glimpse into the future of the current food system shows massive challenges ahead for the 7.6 billion people currently inhabiting the planet. Based on that concern, Rikolto is picking up its pace in securing food for the future through the involvement of consumers, especially young people. Why young people?

Starting an eco-tourism project? Selling innovative products like soap and cream made from cocoa? What are the opportunities for rural youth to tackle high unemployment rates? Six young Nicaraguan cocoa producers got inspired during an exchange trip in Honduras, to be able to set up their own start-ups in their home communities.

Young people will inherit one of the greatest challenges that we have all started to struggle with even today: how to feed a rapidly growing world population. VECO Indonesia and VECO Belgium teamed up to visit a high school in Bali, SMAN 4, to speak with the students and learn more about what they envision as food for the future. Read this article and watch a short video to find out what these young people think about the challenges in Indonesia.

Our farmers are growing old. And truth is, they produce about 80% of our food. 90% of the farms worldwide are run by individual farmers or families, but nowadays it´s difficult to spot a youngster in the field. So, how can farming still be attractive for youngsters?

"Let's Become Farmers" was the motto at this talk show that started with a documentary called "Agriyoungsters" made by Joren De Neve, an intern at VECO Indonesia and a student in Social Work from the University of Ghent, Belgium. the movie gave an insight on the life of a young farmer in Boyolali, Kiswoyo, who went to Jakarta after he graduated high school, only to come back to his village a few years later and discover that agriculture is an industry which provides him with not only an income but also a purpose and a future.

Two Belgian organizations are boosting Nicaragua's cocoa sector through the project "Yes, Youth Can", sponsored by Rikolto and Youca (Zuiddag), which also involved the cooperative La Campesina. It is expected to reach 300 young people in the municipalities of Matiguás and Río Blanco of Nicaragua in three years, including 120 young women.

VECO teamed up with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Zambia to develop a common signification framework to grasp attitudes, perspectives and emergent patterns on youth involvement in the agri-business sector. Following the design of this framework, a first data collection took place in Peru, Ecuador and Nicaragua in December 2015.