What better way to show the commitment of a group of individuals to a cause than to tell their story with their own pictures and words? Let’s start at the beginning… “On a sunny Tuesday morning in June, we (members of the GFAR Steering Committee) gathered on an agricultural cooperative on the outskirts of Rome. … More Designing the Future of GFAR: Common Values and Commitment Required
Hectic yet reflective! The pilot GFAR-YPARD Young Agripreneur Project is coming to an end and in these posts, the six young agri-preneurs are pondering on their professional and personal journeys over the past twelve months. In April 2016, they all gathered in Johannesburg, where they thrilled the audiences at GCARD3 with their enthusiasm, drive and energy in describing … More The Year of the YAP: A Tale of Genius, Power and Magic
Hectic yet reflective! The pilot GFAR-YPARD Young Agripreneur Project is coming to an end and in these posts, the six young agri-preneurs are pondering on their professional and personal journeys over the past twelve months. In April 2016, they all gathered in Johannesburg, where they thrilled the audiences at GCARD3 with their enthusiasm, drive and energy in describing … More Turning key objectives into reality with YAP!
First time in Europe Mentally I was going to make the best out of everything, no matter what the outcome. From leaving my front door in Kathmandu, Nepal, it took me two days to reach my final destination – Leuven, Belgium. When I finally got there the main thought on my mind, repeating like a … More Discovering new friends and new ideas at ICYA2017
Hectic yet reflective! The pilot GFAR-YPARD Young Agripreneur Project is coming to an end and in these posts, the six young agri-preneurs are pondering on their professional and personal journeys over the past twelve months. In April 2016, they all gathered in Johannesburg, where they thrilled the audiences at GCARD3 with their enthusiasm, drive and energy in describing … More Youth Agripreneurs Project: Sowing the seed for a brighter future
A week ago, I was fortunate to speak at the latest Brussels Rural Development Briefings (Briefing number 49)* that took place at the ACP secretariat in Brussels, Belgium. The briefing focused on “Youth in Agribusiness: shaping the future of agriculture”. One of the key takeaways I took from the conference was that we cannot force … More Youth agribusiness in Africa: not just about knowledge, but action
Hectic yet reflective! The pilot GFAR-YPARD Young Agripreneur Project is coming to an end and in these posts, the six young agri-preneurs are pondering on their professional and personal journeys over the past twelve months. In April 2016, they all gathered in Johannesburg, where they thrilled the audiences at GCARD3 with their enthusiasm, drive and energy in describing … More Farewell to the Goofy Bug Guy
Hectic yet reflective! The pilot GFAR-YPARD Young Agripreneur Project is coming to an end and in these posts, the six young agri-preneurs are pondering on their professional and personal journeys over the past twelve months. In April 2016, they all gathered in Johannesburg, where they thrilled the audiences at GCARD3 with their enthusiasm, drive and energy in describing … More Moving mountains, one jar of honey at a time
This year’s World Wildlife Day celebrates the theme ‘Listen to the Young Voices’. Its message is to mobilize the positive energy of the planet’s youth to call attention to the threats to wildlife. These include over-exploitation poaching or illicit trafficking. Engaging ‘Youth as agents of change’ to improve the world for our wildlife is a … More Youth as a Catalyst for Delivering on the SDGs – A connection we can’t afford to ignore
The more I read on youth mentoring, especially YPARD’s mentoring programmes, the more I got inspired and tempted to mentor young people. My visit to Nikki Chaudhary’s dairy farm in 2016, to witness first-hand her start-up in action, as a finalist of GFAR’s Youth Agripreneurs Project (YAP), was a pivotal moment in understanding the value of these mentoring … More Mentoring rural youth to make agriculture attractive
The International Conference for Youth in Agriculture (ICYA) held from 27 to 30 April in Leuven Belgium was created in order to give space to young, bright and internationally active people to interact, discuss, learn and project their ideas into practical solutions that could inspire students all over the world to take action and adopt … More Sparking the Creativity of Youth at #ICYA
Changing the world with a single project. Wouaah. That’s big. I have seen a group of American students aiming to solve health problems in rural Belize. They came to a public school for three days. They taught yoga to kids who had never had any sport class at all. They planted vegetables that school’s cooks … More A peacock in a barnyard !
“Every step counts. Every talent finds a place.” – M. Hartl (IFAD) on her training session at ICYA 2017 After finishing a bachelor degree in international economics, I turned down a promising job offer and decided to take a year off. When I told my parents I would go to Germany to study agriculture, they … More Of mothers, wives, and farmers
‘My name is Sandhya, I am studying Sustainable Management of Natural Resources in Suriname. I am currently doing an one year exchange program at Ughent to study agriculture courses of my choice. These fundamental courses are not available in Suriname.’ As I introduced myself at the social media bootcamp preceding the #ICYA2017 conference, I felt … More How to avoid youth getting involved in agriculture?
The second day of ICYA 2017 turned its priority to agriculture in modern cities. Standing out from solutions for education and waste reduction, urban farming attracted the most attention from the audience. The topic was not new. But neither was it conventional. In the last several decades, cities have taken up a vast amount of … More The Garden of Thought: A multinational debate on urban farming
“Participatory Video” is a form of participatory media-generation in which a group or a community creates their own video. The idea behind this is that having a video made by the actual stakeholders in a process or situation, makes the video more accessible, and would be better adapted to the target audience. The process of … More Join GFAR’s next webinar on “Participatory Video”
Have you ever wondered how you could reach a wider audience with news of how your organization is a part of the GFAR mission to transform agri-food research and innovation? Have you wished you could highlight your work with partners as a concentrated online burst, not just the occasional cross post on a website or blog? … More A week in the life – share and celebrate your work as a Partner in GFAR
After 3 days of lengthy meetings and positive interactions, I honestly do think a change is coming. At the very least I can see it. Last month, a suprise came in our email. Tech4Agri was elected as the local Youth Representative for the GFAR Steering Committee. We had just signed up to become members of … More Change is coming
Busy, busy, busy…This quarter has been huge for our young agripreneurs in the GFAR-YPARD Young Agripreneur Project. It’s now 10 months on since they thrilled the audiences at GCARD3 with their enthusiasm, drive and energy in describing their projects. These have all started with the young agripreneurs matched with mentors, engaged in coaching and training, … More Entrepreneurship : The journey to build resilience
GFAR is truly a multi-stakeholder body. GFAR involves everyone from farmers to upstream science, public, private and civil society all working together in dealing with issues of the complex, ‘wicked’ problems of agriculture, food and rural development. These are issues that require multiple actors, who may often hold fundamentally opposed views, to work together in … More GFAR: Catalyzing change through networked actions
