Vacancy title:
Youth in Agriculture

Jobs at:
Local Entrepreneurship Network and Environmental Conservation (LENEC)

Deadline of this Job:
7th December 2018

Duty Station:
Tanzania

Summary
Date Posted: 24th October 2018 , Base Salary: Not Disclosed , Employment Type: Full-Time

JOB DETAILS:

Description
Horticultural Farming for Improved Production Economy (HoFIPE) is a project that desires to address youth employment through the agricultural sector in Tanzania. The project intends to involve youth and other peasant individuals through building their capacities on improved irrigation scheme under three (3) important phases, (1) Awareness on Agricultural information: Challenges and Opportunities; ( giving information through local meet-ups, seminars, workshops, and social media (2) Development of farm training: (for demonstrating improved farming technology and better farming strategies) (3) Connect trained individuals: (youth and other peasant individuals) to financial institutions or companies like SACCOS and banks for loan or farming tools access respectively.

This initiative is organic farming growing sweet peppers, tomatoes, and onions as pilot crops for the training through the use of improved farming technology, consisting of a solar electric pump, drip set-up, improved seeds, and plant vitamins that will ensure vegetable products of quality and quantity at market.

The project is focusing on the agricultural sector since it is the cornerstone of the country’s economy. Agriculture accounts for about half of the national income, three quarters of merchandise exports, is a source of food and provides employment opportunities to about 80 percent of individuals (URT 2009). It has linkages with the non-farm sector through forward linkages to agro-processing, consumption and export; provides raw materials to industries and a market for manufactured. Moreover, the project insists on resource-saving agricultural crop production that strives to achieve acceptable profits together with high and sustained production levels.

The initiative shall establish the training base at Mvomero District where will be the centre for the project. Thereafter, the initiative shall expand to other farming zones to reach out the young people and other indigenous community members to participate in agriculture which is the biggest employer, has high income returns and offers food security. Also, this initiative shall introduce the Agricultural Show-Case (ASC) that shall act as platform for discussing and presenting the Agricultural Context through TV/Radios explaining the farming activities, opportunities and other important information relating to agricultural sector to youth and other peasant individuals.

This project views that inadequate awareness on farming and technology, poor lending access, non-specific training on crop types to grow and unreliable product market cause the youth and other individuals to shun away from agricultural sector.