Empowering youth through agriculture

IN a bid to empower females and youths, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), under the EU-Streit programme in PNG, has partnered with a school in East Sepik.
According to the FAO, the aim is to promote and advocate for embracing agriculture as a promising profession by the rural females and youths.
As part of its broad-based partnership with local stakeholders, FAO collaborated with Bishop Leo Secondary School during a two-day cultural event recently, to demonstrate how using efficient knowledge and skills in agriculture can result in quantity and quality production.
Patu Shang, the FAO gender and youth inclusion specialist, explained to the attending pupils the importance of mainstreaming gender perspectives and youth inclusion in this rural agriculture development programme.
“Twenty-five per cent of the PNG’s gross domestic product comes from agriculture,” Shang said.
“We can increase this by encouraging the youth, who make up 60 per cent or 7.3 million of the population, to take part in agriculture.”
To mark the occasion, demonstrations were carried out by EU-Streit PNG officers on cocoa bud grafting, vanilla pollination and fish feed formulation, which attracted many enthusiastic students.