Youths For Agribusiness

Our Purpose

Today’s young Africans have got more opportunities than former generations did to turn their ideas into successful business ventures and careers that can leave an indelible mark on the present and future generation. Agriculture, even with its imperfections, is one of the sectors where Ugandans, especially Uganda’s youth, can use innovation to improve their individual and family welfare, drive the country and region’s growth and transformation agenda, and in the process, create stronger and more resilient economies that can lift millions of people out of poverty.

It is clear that only the more perceptive and better equipped youth will be able to successfully use this vast sector - a fundamental resource required for sustainability across the globe, especially in times like these - to birth and sustain successful businesses and careers in medicine, technology, engineering, architecture, economics, finance, politics, agriculture and the arts, among others.

However, agriculture in Uganda seldom attracts the country’s best and brightest. Many youth who participate in the sector, especially in production (farming), are branded by their peers as uneducated unskilled failures and physical labourers that have got unattractive incomes. Those who are interested in and join the sector face numerous obstacles and constraints that hinder and undermine the commercial viability of their business ventures. Key among these are the limited access to productive resources such as land, skills, knowledge and technologies to improve efficiency, capital and finances for growth and expansion, key networks and vital support services as well as the general problem of high costs of doing business in Uganda and in the region.

Young women as well as youth with disabilities face additional layers of challenges mainly because of lack of appreciation of their uniqueness and inherent value and the institutionalized discrimination. Their minimal access to resources such as land, credit, technology and good education hampers their capacity to use agricultural to succeed.

Our efforts as Uganda Agribusiness Alliance (UAA) under the Youth4Agribusiness (Y4A) initiative and our work on Human Capital Development seek to stimulate investments in initiatives which can ensure that all young people can successfully take up and maximize the vast opportunities provided by and through agriculture, even with the odds, and become active and effective participants in Uganda’s and the region’s development.

VISION

An agriculture sector that is dominated by innovative and entrepreneurial youth who have got the mindset, expertise and resources required to revolutionize Uganda’s agribusiness industry as well as other sectors that depend on agriculture.

MISSION

To build a community of competent, competitive, and confident agripreneurs with the principles, ambition, networks as well as tools they need to seize opportunities within the environment and use them to create decent and gainful employment for themselves and others, improve community livelihoods and drive sustainable growth and development.

OBJECTIVES

To inspire uptake of agriculture as a career and business by innovative and talented youth by exposing them to the lucrative opportunities in the sector and demonstrating how these can be exploited.
To empower young people to create successful agro-based enterprises and access decent and gainful employment by equipping them with the requisite attitudes, knowledge, skills and resources.
To provide and promote platforms that make it possible for young people to access strategic linkages that can enable them achieve their business and professional goals
To amplify the voice and increase the participation of youth in policy and strategy-related activities so that a conducive environment that can enable them to meaningfully and gainfully participate in growth and development as agribusiness investors and professionals is created.
To strengthen coordination among and empower actors involved in Youth & Agribusiness Development so that their interventions are effective by creating platforms that support peer-2 peer learning, enable exchange of ideas, insights and best practices as well as promote joint ventures that can enable achievement of shared goals.