DAR ES SALAAM – IITA has started a special scheme for young people  dubbed ‘IITA Youth Agripreneurs’ to help transform agriculture into business.

The scheme is part of others already operating in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

It is a pilot study that has two main objectives, tackling youth unemployment and encouraging young people to transform agriculture in Africa. IITA is one of the world’s leading research partners in finding solutions for hunger, malnutrition, and poverty.

IITA Regional Corporate Communications Officer for East and Southern Africa, Catherine Njuguna said young people, have energy, skills and knowledge so it is easy for them to adapt.

“As I told you earlier, we need to use these young people because they have energy, skills and knowledge. So if we empower them and use them effectively, they will be able to transform agriculture into business in Tanzania and Africa at large,” she said.

She said 25 Tanzanians have been selected for the pilot study. They are being trained how to use modern farming methods, carry out processing as well as being taught business skills.

Njuguna said for agriculture to make a difference in Africa, there is need to use modern farming methods, new technology as well as to apply business skills.

IITA thinks transforming agriculture, which is the backbone of African economies, would have more meaning to most of the African countries. It also believes that this is the best way to solve youth unemployment across Africa.

“We also see logic to engage ourselves in agriculture and involve youth, because the population doing farming in Africa are aged. Therefore they need immediate replacement,” she said.

She said besides being aged, many people who are doing farming in Africa are smallholders who are still using traditional hand hoes and this has made agriculture unattractive to young people.

“We want to transform agriculture by making it an attractive sector. To make this dream come true, we have to replace the aged with young people and change into modern farming methods,” she said.

She told East African Business Week that their current capacity programs engage university students at the degree, masters and PHD levels.

 “This is why we have decided to start with university student, because we have a big group of graduates who have no jobs,” she said.

The spokesperson of IITA Youth Agripreneurs, Zakayo Maseki, who is part of 25 graduates said they are happy with this project. “I have already been given training on how to make soybean milk. I have already prepared five litres of soybean milk,” he said.

The Chairperson of Soybean Agripreneurs, Mariam Senn said she decided to learn how to produce Soya Milk because there is a very big potential in Tanzania. 

“Soybean products have a number of nutrition things suitable for the human body

and in Tanzania many people want to eat and drink soybean products,” she said.