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Simon, 24, lives near the bustling regional town of Nyeri, amid the lush green hills of Kenya’s central highlands. his father owns A small piece of land where the family grows teaMaking him one of the estimated 600,000 small tea farmers in the country. This industry provides about half of the tea we drink in Britain.
As things stand, Simon works online as an “academic writer”: one of thousands of highly-educated, unemployed young Kenyans ghost-writing essays, PhD dissertations and other academic papers. For students in rich countries Like UK and US. But he hopes that one day he will be able to save enough money to buy a piece of land so that he too can become a farmer.
“For now, I need to remain employed, so that hopefully one day I can save enough to buy some land of my own and start farming,” he says, speaking during a tour. Independent To Iriani, his tea farming cooperative society. “For young people like me, who are passionate about farming, this is the only option: to work hard and save.”
However, a growing chorus of voices are warning that young farming enthusiasts are becoming harder to come by in Africa’s emerging economies. Globally, the share of youth working in agri-food systems has declined from 54 percent in 2005 to 44 percent in 2021, according to a Recent report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)While some estimates put the average age of a farming family in Africa over 60,
Big City Charm (With a Guess) 50 percent kenyan plans to live in cities by 2050) and the prospect of fast cash from a modern professional role are all cited as reasons why young people are exploring life beyond Hull. Other problems cited include access to land, with plots becoming smaller as they are divided between generations impact of climate shocksAccording to the FAO report, an estimated 395 million rural youth are likely to experience declines in agricultural productivity due to climate change.
While he holds on to his dream, all of these concerns are identified by Simon. “At the moment my family won’t give me land, so I can just work hard and save my land,” he says. He further said that climate change is also a major concern, as temperatures are higher at certain times of the year and higher than before at other times. The rain is coming very hard or not coming at all,
“If I look ahead fifty years, which is the amount of time I’ve been a farmer, climate change is definitely a big concern,” he says. “We still need to do much more to secure our future.”
His comments follow a survey conducted by the Fairtrade Foundation earlier this year which found that 50 per cent of young people in the tea industry believe that climate change The biggest challenge facing the tea industryMore broadly, only one in five tea farmers said they earn enough income to support their family with essential commodities each month,
For other young Kenyans, the stigma that has developed around farming means the industry has completely lost its appeal. Dennis, a 30-year-old NGO worker living in Nairobi, has no desire to go back to his village and work on a farm.
“People don’t want to get into farming because for a long time we’ve associated it with being poor, or we’ve associated it with old people and retirement,” he says. “My parents’ generation and the generation before that were always in farming, but my generation wants to try life in the big city – and then maybe when we’re older we’ll go into farming. It’s the same here.”
Elliot, a 20-something laborer working on his father’s tea farm, which is part of the Momul Tea Factory in the west of the country, is not very happy with his situation. “I’m working here because I have no choice,” he says. “I’d love to do something else – when you’re unemployed, this is when you go and work on the family farm.”
Recent years have seen Elliott’s family tea farm seriously affected by climate changeThe crop is severely affected by drought at some times of the year and hailstorm at other times. Last year, the 4,098 kg tea produced by the farm was about 30 per cent less than the 5,794 kg produced the previous year.
‘Climate change is really causing huge damage’
The transition from a largely smallholder farming population to a more urbanized, educated population is a classic development path that countries like Kenya will inevitably go through as they progress. But with smallholders providing about 80 percent of Kenya’s agricultural output, and agricultural products representing Kenya’s largest export sector, there is a real concern that a cornerstone of the East African nation’s economy may be at risk.
African countries also currently import a large share of their food – including a third of the grains and 64 percent of wheat consumed on the continent – so the shift of youth away from agriculture is also alarming from a food security perspective.
Climate change, which is driving up food prices in many countries and threatening the livelihoods of smallholders, is another complicating factor that previous emerging economies have not had to grapple with. Just like Kenya and other African countries have to do,
“Smallholder farmers are certainly facing a number of barriers at the moment that are of concern to us, including land rights, lack of skills and knowledge to farm well, and now climate change is really complicating everything,” explains William Matovu, head of Africa strategy at the development charity Heifer International.
“Climate change is really causing huge damage across the continent now. The numbers are really huge 3.5 million people The north of Kenya alone has been affected by the recent drought, he added.
Concerns about climate change are so high among Kenyan farmers that even many current elderly farmers express hope that their future generations will be able to forge new paths rather than deal with the same challenges they have faced.
“I feel sad when I think about the future. Climate change is making things much worse, and it will take a lot of resilience and a lot of training from someone to maintain it after I’m gone,” says Martha Mukundi, who also lives in Iriani, and recently – With the help of money received from selling tea with the Fairtrade label – Bought a cow and started avocado farming to diversify their income as climate threats increase.
“The way things are, I will not encourage any member of my family to grow tea because it has become very difficult,” explains Evelyn Cherugut, another small tea farmer at Momul Tea Factory, who now earns more money from beekeeping than tea farming. “Hail, the likes of which we have never seen, is ruining crops – and the payout is too low.”
protecting agriculture for the future
Food systems experts emphasize that with targeted intervention from NGOs and governments, the agricultural sector in countries like Kenya can continue to attract youth, and the industry can continue to thrive.
For William Matovu at Heifer International, a big part of the solution lies around Developing climate-resilient solutionsSo that young people understand this sector as a sector that can support them long term. These include everything from supporting communities to collectively buy tractors to increase their efficiency, to making satellite monitoring of weather patterns more accessible Developing early warning systemsInsurance for farmers and herders if they suffer loss in production while selling their products extreme weather events,
“Africa has a large youth population and 60 percent of the world’s arable land – but it is not producing enough food, and it is not currently considered profitable,” he says. “So we have to think about innovative solutions to help the industry and change that reputation.”
Other organizations such as the Fairtrade Foundation are also working to make farming a more sustainable sector by giving small farmers better deals on the products they sell – although the reach of their work depends on How many consumers are willing to buy Fairtrade products in countries like the UK,
Pathé Sene, managing director of the Africa Food Systems Forum, says youth may be encouraged to apply for jobs elsewhere in the food system value chain, where some of the stigmatizing dynamics may not be so prevalent.
“There are jobs in food processing, packaging, marketing, transportation and digital infrastructure,” he says. “We all have to eat, and we have to produce the food we eat, so we have to make this system work.
“If we can demonstrate that you can work in agriculture, and you can make money and it can be sexy – and it’s not hard, grandparent-type work that uses obsolete equipment and tools – then I think some more of those young people will come and get involved in this field.”
This article was produced as part of The Independent Rethinking global aid Project