Is climate-smart agriculture the silver bullet to attract youth to agriculture?

Abstract

With the average African farmer’s age hitting nearly 60 years, the sector’s stakeholders have been diligently working to come up with measures on how to attract and retain youth in the sector. There have been a myriad of suggestions, but none of them seemed as attractive as engaging youth through climate-smart and digital agriculture. In April 2019, thought leaders, policy experts, researchers, the private sector and youthful farmers joined a sizeable audience of participants at the first Agtech Africa summit, held in Nairobi, Kenya. These stakeholders came together to discuss the potential of climate-smart and digital agriculture in attracting young people and thereby rejuvenating an aging global agricultural sector