Can better technology lure Asia’s youth back to farming
This Article is about the Asian Development Bank (ADB)’s Food Security Forum from June 22 to 24 at the ADB headquarters. There, food and agriculture experts said that farming and agriculture may not seem cool to young people, but if they can learn the thrill of nurturing plants to produce food, and are provided with their favourite apps and communications software on agriculture, food insecurity will not be an issue. According to the experts youth can make a great impact on the agricultural sector as many young people today are educated and will appreciate the future of food and the environment. With 750 million young people aged 15 to 24, Asia and the Pacific offer a huge potential of youth. However, as the study: ‘A Viable Future: Attracting the Youth to Agriculture’ (PDF) of the Asian Farmers Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA) shows, at this moment most youth is stimulated to migrate to cities or overseas as most families associate farming with poverty. To make the agricultural sector more attractive, emphasis at the forum was also put on the plight of farmers. They are mostly older in age, dwindling in numbers and remain one of the most marginalised sectors in every society. Globally, farmers have been neglected, and in the Asia Pacific region, they are the poorest.