Background

Co-hosted by CTA and the Rwandan Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) and supported by an impressive array of international organisations, the international conference ICT4ag offers participants the opportunity to discover exciting opportunities and cutting edge technologies. Representing the public and private sector in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific and further afield, delegates will discuss how increased investment and adoption of ICTs in the agricultural sector will contribute to improved value chains as well as more effective advocacy and policy processes in agricultural and rural development. In addition, they will share ideas and knowledge, discuss new approaches, best practices and experiences. Issues related to ICT trends and their impact on agriculture, capacity building, enabling environments, scaling up and sustainability will also be discussed. For more information, see: http://www.ict4ag.org.

The Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) and Faculty of Agriculture (University of Mauritius), are convening a National Agricultural Youth Policy Dialogue on the 12 April, 2013 at the University of Mauritius, Reduit. The objective of the dialogue is to deliberate on the issues of youth involvement in agricultural policy processes and especially those policies aimed at mainstreaming youth. A number of studies point to the fact that youth do not necessarily play a major role in the development of policies.

ICTs have proved to be effective tools in stimulating young people’s interest in agriculture. The added value of these technologies for youth in agriculture lies at least at three levels: ICTs offer new marketing tools to enhance more than in the past (youth-led) agricultural businesses; ICTs help promote agricultural interest and opportunities for youth, and finally, they bring about new jobs linked to agricultural software and ICT-based agribusinesses (mobile applications (mAgri), market information systems, etc).