The International Youth Day (IYD) commemorated on the 12th of August every year as declared by the United Nations General Assembly on the 17th of December 1999 following its resolution 54/120, provides an opportunity to celebrate young peoples’ views and initiatives on a global scale. This year it is celebrated with the theme: Transforming Food Systems; Youth Innovation for Human and Planetary Health.
The development of food systems has been a critical conversation in Nigeria and globally over the past few years due to the ravaging climate crisis, perennial insecurity challenges, and the novel COVID-19 pandemic hampering food production and distribution. The challenges pose the most significant challenges to nourishing the expanding global population, our precious and fragile food systems reach a breaking point. Before there was an International Youth Day, there was an International Youth Year which was created in 1985.
Ten years later, some guidelines and rules were established to help people all over the world work together to improve the lives of young people. The 15 areas that were designated a priority, as far as youth is concerned, is Education, Employment, Poverty, Health, The Environment, Delinquency, Drug Abuse, HIV and AIDS, Girls and young women, Active Participation, Globalization, Intergenerational relations, youth conflict, communication technologies and recreational activities.
So, the need to introduce a total paradigm shift with deploying novelty in changing the food systems, which would include the related resources, the inputs, production, transport, processing and manufacturing industries, retailing, and consumption of food as well as its impacts on the environment, health, and society is unequivocal. Therefore, the theme for this year is quite apt and essentially calls on the inclusion of young persons in the food systems reform process and encouraging them to invest and engage in agri-business. There is the need to tap into this vibrancy by mobilizing the energy and agency of young people—as producers and consumers of food, as potential innovators and entrepreneurs, and as policy actors—to transform food systems.
This cannot be over emphasised. Youth engagement is key to the transformation of food systems as they constitute 60% of Nigeria’s productive and reproductive population demographic, and as such, the need to position young farmers at the centre and prioritize them in such discussions as fundamental contributors and partners towards the identification of new and innovative solutions and its consequent implementation for the promotion of climate smart agriculture, sustainable value chains for our planet, and healthy lifestyles.
It is in this vein that Youth Training Hub Africa this year with the support from Solidaridad West Africa-Nigeria would be hosting a strategic Young Farmers and Agric Sector Stakeholder’s Dialogue/Forum targeting key young farmers, policy makers and relevant stakeholders in Cross River State in commemoration of the 2021 International Youth Day.
As Today, global agriculture is facing significant challenges, including feeding a growing world population, the need to address rural poverty, and the management of ecosystem goods and services in light of global environmental changes, evident through climate change, which becomes imperative. This Dialogue would provide the platform for a robust discussion on what has not worked and should be unlearned across the value chains, highlight policy gaps and export opportunities for young people while facilitating opportunities for future engagements in Cross River State.
There is an urgent need for youth power to add pressure on decision makers in politics and the economy. We need to strengthen and facilitate an enabling environment for innovations to improve agriculture and the well-being of all. As young people are ready to transform food systems, it must be sustained as we keep striving achieving the SDGs 1 and 2 in Nigeria. Indeed, if Agriculture goes wrong nothing else will have a chance to go right’ M.S Swaminathan.
We demand a shift; we agree to make the shift. #YouthPower