Charles Dhewa
The way young Zimbabweans are seeking and sharing knowledge can tell us a great deal about our future farmers and entrepreneurs. Most young people are looking for jobs that are more social. They want to be part of a community that is building something together. Thanks to social media, they will not suffer from professional isolation, deep in farming areas. For a number of smart and curious youths, informal agriculture markets are a starting point for exploringvarious opportunities.
While individualism has partly been blamed for negatively affecting agricultural production in most irrigation schemes around the country, by bringing new social norms into agriculture, the young generation will contaminate agriculture with new positive practices.
A young farmer can start the morning by collaborating with a team of traders, then send emails to colleagues in the diaspora while also juggling team meetings with farmers in the local community knowledge centre. To prepare students for this new world, schools, colleges and universities have to revise their curriculums towards team-focused learning.
Shared experiences make it easy for the young generation to work well together. A new career path for some youths involves studying team composition and WhatsApp patterns in order to figure out how to transform farmers into more productive versions of themselves.
Some of the most critical tasks for the young generation of farmers and agribusiness entrepreneurs include conducting real-time research and financial analyses, writing reports and giving presentations.
As agribusinesses become increasingly global and complex, the bulk of modern agriculture-related work is going to be more team-based. From how they prioritise working together, the young generation seem to concur that groups that work together innovate faster, see mistakes more quickly and find better solutions to problems.
While this makes sense theoretically, lessons from many smallholder farming areas suggest that agricultural success is more of an individual effort. Groups have not demonstrated that they are a fundamental part of a farmer organisation. As if to confirm this, most farmer organisations still emphasise individual membership. Studying how farmers and traders share information makes it possible to figure out why some farmers are more effective than others. This can strengthen efforts to improve individual farmers towards collective achievements.
Social African tradition
as part of the context
From time immemorial, social aspects have influenced the transfer of power and knowledge from one generation to another in African communities. Through learning and seniority, it was clear who was to become the head of clan or the household. Once someone was ready to become a head of household, he was given a few resources with which to start a family.
He would continue coming back for more support until he was able to stand on his own. This social system has kept rural households and communities vibrant. Part of the success was based on the fact that rural households and economies were not controlled by too much partisan politics.
When partisan politics came on board, it became a career path, especially for those who had suffered from colonial bondage. Most people who got into politics by passion decided to turn their passion into a career. Unfortunately, experiences of current politicians cannot be easily transferred to the next generation.
That is why it is taking the young generation too long to become career politicians, except those who are born politicians. It is much easier for children of musicians like Leonard Dembo and Simon Chimbetu to become musicians than for sons and daughters of politicians to become politicians.
Need for a weaning-off economic model for the young generation
The majority of youths, growing up in the digital era, have an opportunity to carve their career paths through academic achievements. However, besides academic literacy, they need resources and skills from the old generation. On the other hand, the old generation are struggling to understand the economic needs of youths in order to avail resources and skills in a sustainable manner.
The modern socio-economic system does not seem to have a weaning-off strategy like the previous rural scenario where after a certain age youths would be given pieces of land and a few animals to start their households.
In the modern economic era, youths are being driven by the need to build their own self-sufficiency and career. Unfortunately, African business people do not have a strong culture of establishing separate businesses for their children. They want to continue seeing their children as employees. This limits innovation among youths since the parents continue running family businesses using the old software in a rapidly changing and competitive environment.
There is definite need for weaning-off strategies that enable youths to creatively use their knowledge and networking norms in exploiting abundant natural resources. Most old generation business enterprise models may have credit histories that limit youths from innovating. Weaning-off mechanisms will enable youths to pursue their careers on a clean sheet.
Models for transferring resources
to the young generation
Unlike the retail sector where a son or daughter can be given a shop to operate independently, the agriculture sector does not have meaningful models for transferring resources to the young generation. For instance, the land reform programme does not have models for identifying and transferring skills and resources to the young generation.
Such models can be introduced within the same farm in such a way that some hectares can be registered in the name of youths, for instance, under the 99 year lease. Sons and daughters should have hectares of land registered under their names so that they are able to mobilise their own resources independent of the bigger farm owned by their parents.
This would attract investments and unlock more agricultural value. The fact that some land is branded as “contested” should not affect the young generation who have their own ambition and capability to unlock the value of agricultural resources.
Most farms have more than enough resources that can be shared productively. Agricultural models can be built around existing infrastructure and other resources without having to identify new land elsewhere for youth. Appropriate skills and potential should be identified among youths independent of their parents. Such resources can be considered part of the loan application processes.
Identifying youths with passion and agricultural education can become a comparative advantage in agribusiness. By supporting enterprising youth we create a sense of ownership.
Youths cannot continue providing services to family businesses when they need to become independent business people. It is important to separate individual productivity from inheritance. Every community should identify youths with passion and agricultural skills. With support from their parents, the youths can move into viable commercial production.
Towards demand-driven
extension and markets
A new technology-driven extension model is evolving, thanks to the young generation. Extension services for youths are different from those of the old generation. When it comes to capacity building and extension services, the young generation are quick to adapt technology for both information sharing and food processing.
Unlike the old generation of farmers who continue producing old crops like maize and tobacco, youths can rapidly switch to new crops in line with new consumer habits.
While the old generation of farmers continue relying on traditional extension services, the new generation are more of knowledge seekers who can go about looking for knowledge around the world and actively compare ideas with their peers.
Most agricultural markets are dominated by the young generation. Since the production side is still dominated by the old generation, price and commodity negotiations between the youths and farmers who come to the market is often characterised by mistrust. Youths understand supply and demand dynamics while the old generation of farmers have mastered production resources.
Since the market is in the hands of the young generation, farmers brand most youths in the market “Makoronyera”, which means tricksters. That kind of suspicion will cease when more youths become farmers who are then able to engage with other youths in the market. The quality of commodities coming into the market will meet both sides since youths understand each other better. Both sets of youths are conversant with technology with which they can communicate fluently.
Need for new brands for youths
While most farmer organisations have youth wings, this arrangement does not create sufficient room for the young generation to dream and innovate to a point of self-sufficiency. They need space to creatively engage their peers in the diaspora ready to create markets for local agriculture commodities. The old generation of farmer unions does not have the inherent flexibility to enable youths to connect and do business across the globe.
As a nation, we have invested a lot in the academic side of youths but we are failing to unlock the return on investment. At the moment, those who studied agriculture do not have resources to start practising what they learnt at college. Most graduates end up doing totally different things after graduating. That is a waste of resources.
The biggest important opportunities are in agriculture. We have to allow the young generation to imagine effective ways of starting viable agribusiness and produce nutritious food in climates that are becoming more variable.
If we imagine our agriculture-driven economy as a computer, it has reached a point where it requires a new operating system and software. The young generation are that operating system and new software.
Charles Dhewa is a proactive knowledge management specialist and chief executive officer of Knowledge Transfer Africa (Pvt) (www.knowledgetransafrica.com) whose flagship eMKambo (www.emkambo.co.zw) has a presence in more than 20 agricultural markets in Zimbabwe. He can be contacted on: [email protected] ; Mobile: +263 774 430 309 / 772 137 717/ 712 737 430.