Global Challenges
The world’s population is growing rapidly and the smallholders who grow our food need to increase their output dramatically to meet demand. However, smallholders do not have access to actionable information to improve farming or strengthen resilience.
Farmers are ageing and require the next generation to take over their farming activities and introduce new technologies needed to increase productivity. Although we are living in an era of Peak Youth – with more young people on the planet than ever before – youth don’t see farming as viable option and are increasingly moving to urban areas.
world population by 2050
increase in food production to match population growth
of world’s food grown by smallholders
average age of smallholder farmers
Youth Challenges
young people will enter the job market in the next 10 years
will not find employment.
Farmer Challenges
- Climate change
- Volatile markets
- Aging populations.
of farmers trained by traditional methods don’t adopt changes.
Youth-led Solution
YouthDirect is a youth-led agribusiness empowering young people to lead in end-to-end value chain management, promoting sustainable food production, transparent value chains and improved job security for youth.
Youth will be employed in all aspects of the business including logistics, product aggregation, marketing, sales, and digital tool development and scale.
Farmer-led Solution
Farmers remain central to the future of food. Their knowledge of farming techniques, management of the land and localised solutions to challenges is vital information that needs to be captured and passed on to the next generation.
Delivering farmer-led training, farmers share their insights and innovations with farmers of all ages to ensure these practices are passed on in accessible formats.