By Moses Nyirenda

Lilongwe, May 15, Mana: Minister of Agriculture, Sam Kawale has expressed the need for more youth to be involved in agriculture if the country’s agriculture sector was to develop.

He made the remarks on Wednesday in Lilongwe during the launch of five-year project dubbed ‘Youth Entrepreneurship for the Future of Agriculture (YEFFA)’ which will be implemented in the country by Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) with support from MasterCard.

Kawale said that youth in the country are in large population and have various capabilities that would help to develop the agriculture sector.

“Over 50 percent of population in the country are young people if we leave them behind the country will never develop that is why right now as you can see more programmes are now geared towards young people because they have the energy, creative and they are passionate?

“We need to harness all those asserts of the youth and put them in the agriculture sector so that they can contribute meaningfully to the future of the sector,” the Minister observed.

He added that his Ministry was committed to supporting the youth in different ways which include providing them with loans so that they should venture in commercial agriculture and help in achieving some of the pillars stipulated in Malawi 2063.

Kawale applauded AGRA for coming up with YEFFA project saying that the project would empower more young people to venture into agriculture.

“Over 251, 000 young people are going to have access to financing form MasterCard through AGRA’s new project this is not small amount of people it is significant number of young people who will directly benefit.

“At the end of the five year programme, we are expecting to see young people who are now economically empowered to go into agricultural production as well as value addition and the families are going to develop and the country will also develop,” he said.

AGRA Country Director, Eluphy Nyirenda said that as AGRA they decided to come up with their new project to support the youth with resources in order for them to help in boosting the country’s agri-food system.

“About 50 percent of Malawians are below the age of 35 and these are the ones that are loitering around looking for jobs or financing to start up their businesses.

“It was based on this background to come up with the project so that we can contribute to agri- food system by bringing on board the youth who are passionate about agriculture,” he said.

The launch of YEFFA project was patronized by youth, officials from Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Youth and Sports and AGRA among other government and private sector dignitaries.