Tunis: FAO's 28th Regional Conference for Africa focuses on youth

(Vatican Radio) The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization – FAO – is holding its 28th Regional Conference for Africa in Tunis this week. The organization reports that, despite important economic progress and some agricultural successes, Africa continues to have relatively low levels of agricultural productivity, low rural incomes, and high rates of malnutrition. The FAO is calling for increased investment in agriculture and support to small farmers, including rural youth and women.

The Assistant Director General at the FAO Regional Office for Africa, Bukar Tijani, said that young people are the special focus of the Conference. “The theme of the conference itself is really to support youth in different endeavors of agriculture,” he said, adding that any youth-specific effort needs to tackle a perennial difficulty – the attractiveness of agriculture as a calling and a lifestyle for young people. “We have to also be pulling youth into agriculture,” Tijani said, “because agriculture is seen as a traditional, historical culture and not as farming or as enterprise or as business.” Listen: