The Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) and its partners on November 27, 2018 held discussions with members of Rwanda Youth in Agribusiness Forum (RYAF) to see how more youth can get engaged in agribusiness and take the lead in the country’s agriculture transformation journey.
The discussions were part of an event dubbed “Youth in Agribusiness Caravan 2018” held under theme “Youth Making Agribusiness “Cool” a basis of Sustainable Economic Development.” The youth caravan 2018 aims to building a vibrant youth led agribusiness that creates employment opportunities, improves incomes and livelihoods, as well as making agribusiness cool for a sustainable development.

Speaking at the opening of the 3-day event, Dr Octave Semwaga, Director General in charge of strategic planning and programmes coordination, encouraged more youth to venture into agriculture as the sector has huge potential for business opportunities with high returns for themselves and the rest of the population.
The Director General therefore tipped the youth to seek information on available incentives that support youth engaged in agribusiness.
The agriculture sector contributes around a third of the country’s GDP and employs around 58% of the country’s working population.

The youth caravan 2018 is gathering 100 participants; 60 youth and 40 other stakeholders from different organizations and financial institutions that promote youth in agribusiness in Rwanda. In the caravan, different issues are set to be discussed and discussions are being led by facilitators experienced in the following but not limited to Youth access to finance, Market and Soft skills, Youth employment and Agriculture Entrepreneurship.

The caravan targets young innovators who are already passionate and motivated about Agribusiness, and are ready to be change makers, role models, and agribusiness leaders in drive to transform the agribusiness sector in their communities. During the Agribusiness field visits, and in order to facilitate easy learning, each group will be facilitated by the farm managers. For the first day, a group of 30 participants will be able to visit 2 farms in Northern Province and the other group of 30 will visit 2 farms in East and in Kigali.

On the last day of the caravan, AgriProFocus Rwanda and partners will bring together youth leaders, agribusiness companies, Finance institutions, relevant Ministries, research institutions, farmers, agro-processing industries, International development partners purposely to effectively engage each other in order to draw actionable commitment and support to youth in agribusiness.

This event was organized by AgriProFocus Rwanda in collaboration with MINAGRI, RYAF, HortINVEST, Help a Child Rwanda, ICCO Cooperation, USAID Feed the Future Hinga Weze, Rural Development Initiative, and YEAN Rwanda.