OPPORTUNITIES
MOVE FOOD
FORWARD

Nonetheless, youth participation in collective action faces challenges. Young people have lower levels of experience and resources and may therefore experience greater difficulties in establishing, leading and holding rural organizations to account.^18-19 As suggested by Trivelli and Morel, living in a remote rural setting constitutes the first level in a “hierarchy of exclusion” which can intersect with numerous other characteristics of youth. Gender is considered a major exclusion factor that interacts with rurality reducing young women’s opportunities for participation due to mobility constraints, lower literacy rates, persistent gender inequalities in the rural household and discriminatory social norms.²⁰ Rural youth in employment or education seem to be more likely to be politically or socially engaged than economically inactive youth.²¹ Additionally, youth civic engagement is increasingly tied to the digital sphere, with the internet and social media expanding and redefining traditional civic spaces and forms of engagement, though lack of access to technology and digital literacy represent constraints for unconnected youth in remote rural settings.

Finally, youth often exert little influence on decisionmaking in global forums, including on agrifood systems and climate, due to a lack of participation and voice.²² Research on the lived experiences of young participants in multilateral forums notes persistent barriers to meaningful youth engagement, including inadequate support for quality participation (e.g. lack of clarity regarding objectives, pre-participation training, financial and logistical support) and insufficient inclusivity and representation. Young delegates report tokenism and feeling exploited, and most are unable to attribute any social or policy impact to their participation in global forums.²³ Strategies and policies on youth are often written based on the request of donors or other development partners, rather than grassroots demand (see also Box 3.1).²⁴

Between 2000 and 2022, the youth literacy rate increased from 87 percent to 93 percent, globally.²⁶ However, literacy and numeracy skills often remain alarmingly low even among those who attend school. Low literacy and numeracy have been identified as binding constraints on competitiveness across sub-Saharan Africa, leading to low-quality jobs and persistent poverty and inequality.²⁷ Among young men and women aged 15–24 in subSaharan Africa, 21.4 percent lack basic literacy skills,²⁶ with literacy skills also low in several countries in South Asia and North Africa (Figure 3.2).

At the global level, the gender gap in literacy stood at 2 percentage points in favour of men, but is significantly larger in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.²⁸ For example, in Pakistan 65 percent of young women were literate in 2019 compared with 80 percent of young men, while in Afghanistan only 44 percent of female youth were literate in 2022 compared with 83 percent of male youth (Figure 3.2). In the Central African Republic and Chad, less than one in three young women are literate.

Numeracy skills often lag even further behind literacy skills. In a sample of 13 sub-Saharan African countries, the proportion of children aged 7–14 with foundational numeracy skills^b ranges from less than 1 percent to approximately 36 percent for both boys and girls.²⁸ Limited access to resources, digital technology and skilled teachers exacerbates the situation in rural areas.²⁹ School curricula and textbooks may downgrade farming as an occupation, marginalizing agriculture in young people’s aspirations, contributing to the deskilling of youth and their unpreparedness for life in transforming rural areas.^{30, 32} For instance, almost no mention of pastoralism is made in Kenya’s educational curriculum.³³

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING

In many low- and middle-income countries, even students who attend school often leave without the skills required for better remunerated on- and off-farm jobs, creating a disconnect between education and local labour market demand. Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) – with its focus on practical, work-related skills, such as how to process and package food, or training on the cultivation of new or specific varieties of crops – is often promoted to help address skills gaps and increase the employment opportunities of both youth and adults. However, participation in TVET remains limited. Globally, only 13.6 percent of youth (aged 15–24) have completed vocational education, a proportion that decreases to 9 percent in Africa.³⁴ Youth from marginalized groups may face significant barriers to accessing vocational training.

A systematic review based on 37 studies from India found that despite government efforts, participation of youth from tribal communities in vocational training remained low.³⁵

In both TVET and general education, the socioemotional and problem-solving skills needed for successful youth employment, along with necessary advanced cognitive and technical skills, are not being taught.^{36, 38} Employers highlight the absence of socioemotional skills as the primary reason for their reluctance to hire recent graduates.³⁶ Teaching non-cognitive (soft) skills is likely to be a low-cost investment with high returns, as discussed in Chapter 7.^{39, 40}

However, access to education and training is not sufficient to ensure a match between the skills and training youth receive and those needed for employment. As Fox and Ghandi note, “Africa has both an over-skilling and underskilling problem”,³⁹ which can result in large shares of youth in low- and middle-income countries reporting unemployment or lack of use of their skills. In a sample of eight sub-Saharan African countries, 47 percent of employed youth were overqualified for their jobs, while 28 percent were underqualified,⁴¹ pointing to the existence of substantial labour market frictions (see also Chapter 4).

Learning goes beyond formal schooling.⁴² This is particularly important for rural youth who tend to be disadvantaged in access to quality formal education.^{30, 32} In rural areas, especially in agriculture, knowledge is often passed down from older to younger generations, starting early as children help on the farm. However, in rapidly evolving contexts shaped by factors such as economic development and improved access to education, young people spend less time at home with family and elders, engaging in traditional agricultural activities. On the other hand, young farmers increasingly aspire to adopt modern, technology-driven agricultural practices.^{43, 44} Agricultural extension systems can play a vital role in filling this gap, providing access to information and cutting-edge technologies.

Important complementarities exist between extension services and education. Extension has been found to be most effective in areas with high levels of education, and less effective where education is low.²⁵ Innovative approaches within extension systems may be needed to overcome the constraints to extension imposed by poor education. Non-traditional approaches – peer-to-peer learning, participatory approaches and practice-based learning on the job or in the field – can supplement the gaps left by the formal education system and extension and advisory services (EAS).

This diversity extends to their vulnerability to social and economic exclusion. A larger share of young women than young men are NEET. In 2023, women accounted for two-thirds of youth classified as NEET.⁵⁰ In South Asia, the NEET rate among young women was 42.4 percent, nearly four times higher than that of young men.⁵⁰ Figure 3.4 shows the share of young men and women categorized as NEET across agrifood system transition types. A large share of youth in countries in protracted crisis are defined as NEET, though there is substantial variation across countries and by gender. Young women are more likely to be NEET across the whole sample, with gender gaps disappearing only in industrial systems. Rural young women are significantly more likely to be NEET than their urban counterparts in agrifood systems that are expanding, diversifying and formalizing. However, they are less likely to be NEET in contexts of protracted crises and have similar NEET rates to urban young women in traditional agrifood systems. Young migrant women, particularly those who have migrated to rural areas, are the most likely to fall into the NEET category. For young women, being classified as NEET during youth often results in cumulative disadvantages throughout their lives, reducing their likelihood of employment in later years.

Greater unpaid and domestic care responsibilities keep young women in NEET, particularly in low- and middleincome countries. Data from 126 countries showed most young women of NEET status were not seeking employment for personal reasons, such as illness, disability, pregnancy, caring for young children or family restrictions.⁵⁰ In many countries, a large share of young women (20–24 years old) are married before they turn 18, which often results in the end of education and the start of childbearing as well as increased household responsibilities. Early marriage is most common in countries with lower levels of GDP per capita, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa followed by South Asia. Recent research, however, highlights a high prevalence in Latin America and the Caribbean, where one in four girls are married before they are 18 years old.^{51, 52} Poverty, restrictive gender norms, traditional beliefs and genderbased violence are key risk factors which increase the probability of early marriage.⁵¹

Climate change and other shocks are expected to exacerbate these challenges (see also 53 In Bangladesh, years with moderate to severe heat waves (or the following year) see a higher proportion of girls married early or forced to marry.⁵⁴ The COVID-19 pandemic had similar impacts: in Honduras and Uganda, increased domestic and care burdens during the pandemic disproportionately decreased girls’ attendance of school compared to boys,⁵⁵ conforming to broader global trends where the number of girls who dropped out of school for reasons other than closures were 1.2 times higher than that of boys.⁵⁶

Across a sample of 26 countries, few young people own any agricultural or non-agricultural land (Figure 3.5). Timor-Leste is notable for high land ownership among rural youth – over 75 percent of rural young women and 85 percent of young rural men own some land. On the other end of the spectrum are Jordan and Nepal where less than 5 percent of both young men and women, rural and urban, own any land. Land ownership increases with age in all countries. This rise continues until aging adults begin transferring land through sales or bequests to the next generation, at which point it declines.^62-63 Given age-related data limitations (women over 49 are not surveyed in Demographic and Health Surveys [DHS]), this trend is not visible in Figure 3.5; however, in higher-income countries, the land area owned by older people increased over time, while transfers of land happened later in life.^{63, 64} This could be linked to a lack of successor, difficulty selling the farmland or other socioeconomic constraints that hinder generational renewal in agriculture (see Spotlight 1.1). In many countries, youth aged 15 to 17 may not be legally permitted to own land independently until they reach the legal age of adulthood. In some cases, land may be held in trust until they come of age, while in others, minors may be allowed to own land under specific conditions, such as inheritance. Land ownership laws vary by country, and youth land ownership statistics should be interpreted with these legal considerations in mind.

Land ownership is more common among rural young people than their urban peers. A rural–urban land gap is evident across all age cohorts, reflecting the greater reliance of rural populations on land for their livelihoods. The low incidence of land ownership among rural youth is not surprising; many rural young people work on family farms (see Chapter 4), and they may not be given independent plots of land until later in life or upon marriage. Marked gender inequalities in land ownership exist for all ages but are more pronounced for older age cohorts.

Young people who want to farm face constraints to accessing land. In many contexts, particularly in subSaharan Africa and parts of Asia, a smaller share of young people are inheriting land due to increasing land scarcity, and those who inherit land, tend to receive it later in life as life expectancy increases.⁶⁵ In Ethiopia, young people are less likely than their parents’ generation to be able to access land independently, resulting in different patterns of land acquisition and livelihoods.⁶⁶ A large number of rural youth grow up without any prospect of inheriting land because their parents operate small plots of land, or are landless or tenant farmers.⁶⁰ At the same time, the nature of structural transformation in many lowincome economies offers young people limited off-farm opportunities.

Elders and parents may delay transferring land to young people to retain control and secure their own livelihoods in old age. Land is often the only safety net available in rural areas,⁶⁶ and aging farmers may delay such transfers until they can no longer work the land.⁷⁰ This hinders youth from building independent livelihoods, fuelling frustration and conflicts.⁷¹ Delayed access to farmland through inheritance means that many young people establish themselves as independent farmers when they are no longer young, although their engagement in farming might have started much earlier.² The tension between young people’s desire to receive land and the desire of older generations to maintain control over their land represents a serious challenge in many rural contexts, including those with customary land systems.⁷² A case study from Acholi subregion in Uganda, where land is held under customary tenure and is considered to be scarce, revealed that the elders were concerned about transferring land to youth because they feared it would be sold, jeopardizing their old-age livelihood.⁷³ Such fears are exacerbated in the context of land scarcity linked to population growth, urbanization and land degradation, and competing land uses between the expansion of monocrop plantations, tourism development and conservation efforts, as observed in some countries in Southeast Asia.^{58, 64, 65} In many countries, the promised benefits of plantations have failed to materialize, especially for young people, both in terms of the number and quality of jobs created.⁷⁶

Patriarchal customs and laws often favour men in inheritance, amplifying the barriers to land access for young women. Young men and women tend to have different expectations of inheritance. For example, while 40percent of Burundian young men expect to inherit land, only 17 percent of young women hold this expectation.⁶⁷ Female youth are also less likely than male youth to inherit property from their family but may become landowners through marriage (Figure 3.6). Their access, however, is mediated by gendered power dynamics and patriarchal norms, and their land rights to the property can be lost upon divorce or spousal death.⁷⁸

Even when equality in inheritance is safeguarded under the law, local norms and traditions may discourage women from claiming their rights. For example, evidence from India suggests that while women’s and girls’ inheritance rights are protected by law and registered on the land record, male siblings took over the inherited land.⁷⁹ Women tend to relinquish their share of inherited land in favour of their brothers to help them build their independent livelihoods, but also to secure their support or because of social pressure.^{79, 80} In Kenya, married daughters are refused inheritance to prevent the transfer of land outside their natal holdings and into the husband’s.⁸¹

For young people, rising land prices, limited savings and restricted access to credit are key obstacles to purchasing land. The growth of plantations, extractive industries and residential developments tend to fuel increasing land prices, impeding young people’s access to land.^{29, 72, 76} Community elders and parents may also hold onto land to profit from increased land values brought about by commercial agriculture interests and urbanization.⁷² Using data from 36 countries at different levels of structural and rural transformation stages, Heckert et al.⁸² found that rural transformation – proxied by agriculture value added per worker – is associated with reduced likelihood of landownership among both young men and young women, which may be due to increasing land values, increased commercialization of agricultural production, land consolidation and/or migration. The study also showed that higher levels of structural transformation – proxied by the share of GDP from nonagriculture – are associated with a higher likelihood of landownership for young men, but not young women.⁸²

Renting is becoming an important channel through which young people can gain access to land. A larger share of younger household heads rent land than older heads.⁶⁵ Based on evidence from Canada, China, India and Indonesia, Srinivasan and White (2024) find that most young people are landless and start farming on rented land, even if their parents own land. The only exceptions are youth from land-rich families and those orphaned at a young age.² A study in Northern Ethiopia similarly found that land rental markets can enhance access to land for landless and land-poor youth.⁷² However, the study also revealed that male youth, particularly those who owned oxen, were more likely to benefit from these opportunities. Most rental contracts were under a share-cropping arrangements rather than fixed-cash payment, suggesting the existence of financial barriers or risks considerations that influence the willingness and ability of youth to engage in rental markets. In Indonesia too, youth perceived renting land for fixed-cash payment as risky and lamented the increasing scarcity of sharecropping opportunities.⁸³

Moreover, when young people can access land, they are often restricted to small plots, which limit their ability to generate a decent income. Households headed by a young adult generally operate smaller farms (see Figure 3.7) compared to older headed households, suggesting that farm expansion and land accumulation often occur progressively over the course of an individual’s life. In a case study from a customary tenure regime in Ghana, over three-quarters of youth respondents expressed dissatisfaction with their land sizes, citing concerns that the plots were too small to sustain viable livelihoods.⁷² Similar findings are reported in southern Ethiopia.⁵⁷ In Ghana, young women were only able to access significantly smaller plots.⁷²

Additionally, young people are more likely to experience tenure insecurity. Youth landowners (aged 15–24) and young adult owners (aged 25–34) experience significantly greater tenure insecurity compared to landowners over 35 years old, with variation across agrifood systems (Figure 3.8). Specifically, youth and young adults encounter significantly higher tenure insecurity than adults aged over 35 in protracted crisis, traditional and expanding agrifood systems, while youth who own land do not experience notably higher tenure insecurity than adults in formalizing and industrial agrifood systems. The lower tenure insecurity among youth (aged 15–24) compared with young adults (aged 25–34) in industrial and formalizing agrifood systems may reflect the longer time youth spend in schooling and their continued financial dependence on their parents in these systems. As they transition into employment, they begin to experience tenure insecurity, closely linked to financial and job instability in early career stages. Youth in rural areas are not any more tenure insecure than their urban counterparts. Female youth also do not report higher perceptions of tenure insecurity than male youth except in formalizing agrifoods systems.

Youth voices are largely excluded from discussions on land matters, at all levels, including land reforms and large-scale land sales. Qualitative research from several countries and large-scale land acquisition cases reveals that young people often express frustration that land negotiations are dominated by local chiefs and government officials, with some input from their parents, while youth are rarely included.^{84, 85} However, youth should not always be viewed as vulnerable or excluded from land matters. Local context matters. For example, post-conflict contexts, marked by weakened institutions, often provide opportunities to restructure power dynamics over land, including in customary land systems. In a case study from Northern Uganda, Kobusingye⁸⁶ found that war strengthened the power of young men to assert their claims over land, often undermining the influence of elders and traditional authorities.

However, this relationship is being challenged by increasingly limited access to forests as a result of land acquisitions, a decrease in forested areas on people’s farms and deforestation.¹⁰⁶ Although the latest data suggest that the rate of global deforestation is slowing, 47 million ha of primary forests was lost between 2000 and 2020, with agricultural expansion driving much of land-use change.^{92, 107}

Young people access livestock through inheritance, purchases, gifting and loaning, as well as through the reproduction of animals already owned.¹¹⁰ Livestock acquisition and ownership patterns may be strongly gendered. In Kenya, livestock is mostly inherited by sons. While the inheritance of livestock by girls is unusual and against prevailing norms,¹¹⁰ both men and women may receive livestock as rewards for achievements, and girls may be given livestock to mark important life events such as marriage and the birth of a child.¹¹⁰ However, even when young brides receive such gifts, control over the livestock may reside with the groom. Women often have easier access to and control over small ruminants and poultry, which provide them with an opportunity to earn an income that they can control and an asset that can be sold in the event of shocks.^{111, 113}

Cambodia, Ethiopia, Malawi and the United Republic of Tanzania are among the few countries to collect national, individual-level data on livestock ownership that can be disaggregated by both age and gender, as shown in Figure 3.10. Three elements are apparent from these data. First, a lower share of youth in all countries own each type of livestock, as compared to older adults. Second, young men are more likely than young women to own large livestock in the United Republic of Tanzania, while the opposite is true in Cambodia and Ethiopia. In rural Ethiopia, 26 percent of female rural youth compared with 17 percent of male rural youth own large livestock, either solely or jointly, while among older adults, 80 percent of adult men and 56 percent of adult women own livestock.

The data are consistent with findings in the literature suggesting that access to livestock in Ethiopia is affected by gender, age, marital status, ethnicity and class, and that women’s perceptions of ownership may change as they age.¹¹⁴ Third, in all countries young women are more likely to own poultry compared to young men. In Cambodia, 30 percent of rural young women (aged 18– 24) own some poultry, compared with 17 percent of rural young men.

Norms around youth’s ownership and control over livestock, and their participation in livestock value chains can evolve. For example, in Ethiopia, there is evidence that young women are increasingly able to control income which comes from the sale of sheep and goat products (e.g. cheese and butter), and that young people are working in wage positions in small-ruminant value chains, reducing the importance of owning larger animals.^{115, 116} In addition, newer strategies are being adopted to facilitate young people’s access to livestock. For example, a study in Baringo County in Kenya found that young women acquired cattle, sheep and goats through participation in rotating savings groups.¹¹⁰ However, among pastoralist youth in Ethiopia, membership in local savings organizations, which seemed a promising approach to enable young people to acquire livestock, was limited by lack of income and social capital.¹¹⁷

Youth in agriculture are utilizing digital agricultural solutions. Out of a sample of 30 000 youth engaged in agriculture across 11 African countries, 23 percent were found to be engaging with at least one form of digital agricultural technology (an app, SMS, website or software). According to respondents, ease of use, range of information provided and affordability are three critical success factors of digital solutions.¹⁵⁸

Social media platforms, in particular, are creating new roles within agricultural value chains, such as agribusiness mentors, agricultural influencers and “proxy farmers”.¹⁵⁹ These platforms are also being used for crowdfunding initiatives, enabling young agripreneurs to secure capital independently of traditional financial institutions.¹⁵⁹ Beyond social interactions, internet and social media platforms are increasingly being used for practical purposes such as learning, job hunting, and accessing and sharing technical or market information, as well as buying and selling goods and services online.^{160, 161} Digital advisory services, marketplaces, fintech, farm management and supply chain traceability apps are also expanding opportunities for youth engagement.¹⁴⁵ These innovations can drive entrepreneurship and create employment opportunities for rural youth, enabling them to diversify their livelihoods both within and beyond the rural farm economy.¹⁵⁹

Mobile phone devices serve as the primary gateway for accessing the internet and digital services in LMICs,¹⁴⁸ a trend that includes young people. In DHS data for a set of 26 countries, ownership of a mobile phone is on average lower among youth than among older cohorts, and lower still among rural youth, especially girls, than among urban youth (Figure 3.15), although there is a great deal of heterogeneity among countries. On average in the 26 countries, 48 percent of rural female youth and 58 percent of rural male youth own a mobile phone compared with 76 percent of girls and 80 percent of boys in urban areas. Mobile phone ownership is markedly higher among youth in the Asian and European countries in the sample, and lower in most sampled sub-Saharan African countries.

Young farmers aspire to engage in modern agriculture that relies on improved technology.⁴⁴ For example, younger apple farmers in China (aged 35 and under) showed the highest willingness to pay for precision pesticide technology services and equipment, indicating a strong interest among younger farmers in being early adopters of innovative agricultural technologies that enhance productivity and efficiency.¹⁶⁶ The 2022 State of Food and Agriculture report presents case studies from the Republic of Korea (ioCrops) and the United States of America (Atarraya and Cattler) that highlight youth’s openness to innovation and underscore their critical role in shaping the future of agriculture.¹⁶⁵ Other studies indicate that young farmers are more likely to adopt improved crop varieties, as seen in the United Republic of Tanzania.¹⁶⁷

Despite their innovative potential, rural youth face significant challenges in accessing modern farming tools and irrigation technologies. Limited financial resources often hinder their ability to invest in mechanization. Furthermore, and as mentioned above, land access remains a critical barrier, particularly for irrigation systems, where secure land tenure is essential.¹

Access to agricultural inputs such as quality seeds, fertilizers and pesticides can also represent a challenge for young people in LMICs. Data from FAO’s RuLIS database suggest that adult-headed households, as compared to youth-headed households, exhibit greater uptake of and access to improved seeds (8 out of 10 countries), fertilizers (10 out of 14 countries) and chemicals (12 out of 18 countries) (Figure 3.16). This outcome is linked to other constraints including insufficient financial resources, low access to credit and inadequate access to extension services. Moreover, programme design can also constitute a barrier for youth. A multi-year study in Malawi of the Farm Input Subsidy Programme found that the targeting criteria, which focused on households led by married or widowed individuals, limited the access of unmarried youth to the programme’s full benefits. Those that did benefit relied on social connections to participate.^{84, 168}