By Milensu Kapaipi, ILO Rural Youth Enterprise for Food Security Project

In September 2015, leaders of the world’s nations will formally adopt a set of sustainable development goals at the United Nations in New York.

Among these, Goal 2 aims to achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. Goal 8 seeks to promote productive employment. A number of developing countries are struggling with creating a sufficient number of good jobs. Availability of and access to nutritional food is another challenge.

One such country, Zambia, is in the process of surmounting these challenges through a market-oriented project to create decent jobs for youth while improving food security through the development of sustainable rural enterprises.

With financial support from Sweden, the International Labour Organization (ILO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and government of Zambia have joined forces and started to improve job opportunities for rural youth.

By improving productivity and addressing market constraints, men and women in rural areas can make a decent living from small-scale farming and better jobs in agro-food value chains.

Rural youth unemployment

Impressive economic growth experienced in Zambia has not yet translated to significant gains in job creation, equality and poverty reduction. The poverty rate in rural Zambia stands at 77 per cent which is much higher than that of urban areas (28 per cent). Much of this poverty is linked to poor earnings from agriculture.

The large proportion of youth in the country’s population − nearly 59 per cent of Zambians are in the 15 to 35 years of age group − is having difficulty finding work and making a living, particularly in rural areas.

Starting up farming enterprises

The Yapasa^* project, Rural youth enterprise for food security, aims to create up to 3000 decent jobs for rural youth in Zambia and improve the performance of 5000 youth owned/managed enterprises by August 2017.

The project brings together key players in the agriculture market: youth beneficiaries who are workers and at the same time entrepreneurs, employers and consumers; suppliers and distributors of farming inputs; processing companies; and financial service providers.

In 2014-15, 100 youth participated in the pilot of the programme. They were trained in farming methods and business skills, and each received a bank loan equivalent to US $350 for purchase of certified soybean seeds, special fertilizer and pesticide.

The project’s partners share some of the financial risk taken on by banks in the development and testing of new agribusiness financial products for rural youth, the majority of whom accessed finance and other banking services for the first time. Partners’ support is withdrawn once banks gain confidence in the success of these types of loans.

Crops carefully selected

The project consulted widely in the selection of which commodities to produce: those that would maximize benefits for Zambian small holders and the population at large.

Malnutrition remains a big challenge in Zambia especially in children under the age of five, 40 per cent of whom suffer from stunting (low height for age).

Protein deficiency has been identified as one of the main contributors to malnutrition in many low-income households, hence soybean and fish farming (aquaculture) were carefully selected and analysed as sectors for agribusiness development. They are not only high value commodities with significant potential for market growth, but also support national food and nutritional security goals.

Results and ambitions

Youth involved in the project are very enthusiastic about managing their farming businesses, and were thrilled to be able to access finance which is often a big hurdle. Interest in participating in the scheme is strong.

Important lessons were learned in the pilot programme and partners are in the process of refining certain aspects such as including crop insurance in the scheme in case of drought.

It is expected that farmers will expand their areas of cultivation. This will require additional finance to cover the cost of equipment to ease the burden of land preparation which has been done so far manually or by using oxen to plough the earth.

The project intends to attract more women since only one third of the participants were female.

Innovations will be introduced that will boost small holder productivity to eventually grow enough in the longer term to export soybeans and fish to neighbouring countries. Opening the door to new markets will be a huge milestone and lead to higher profits and sustainable incomes for small holder farmers.

Increasing good food and jobs, the project targets Goals 2 and 8. It even doubles the take, hitting at poverty (Goal 1) and evening out inequality (Goal 10).


^* Yapasa in this context means 'the plan worked out’ or 'the deal went through'.