Youth Agri Champions Demand Paper 2023

achieve this, governments should consider
To
platforms for regular exchange and
establishing
between smallholder farmer groups,
collaboration
policymakers across different relevant
trainers,
academia, and other stakeholders. For
departments,
policy issues, such as water management or
specific
promotion of off-grid energy solutions in
the
agriculture, task forces should be
smallholder
including farmers, trainers, academics, and
created,
associations, to support the development
industry
institutions should commit to
Academic
their links with smallholder farming
strengthening
facilitating engagement between smallholder
by
and students and faculty in relevant
farmers
such as agricultural sciences, land and
disciplines
management, environmental policy,
water
should initiate further joint research projects
They
farming communities and encourage students
with
spend time with smallholder farmers and delve
to
agricultural innovation. This would ensure that
into
policymakers, project managers, and
tomorrow’s
have a deeper understanding of the
academics
of smallholder farming, and of the practical
realities
of their policies and projects.
implications
should put their innovation
Governments
to work for smallholder farmers,
ecosystems
start-ups that provide new technological
supporting
facilitating affordable loans, tax incentives
solutions,
pay-as-you-go business models to make those
and
more accessible to smallholder farmers,
solutions
launching initiatives such as hackathons and
and
challenges to overcome common
innovation
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and BKMC staff meet the AgriChampions from Kenya
8th
the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, Kenya - September 2023
during
of effective policies.
problems.
environmental and biosystems engineering.
Youth AgriChampions Demand Paper 8