This event discussed the importance of future generation toward the prosperity of agriculture, food systems and sustainable food security, and preparing children toward such.
The discussion held with Adebayo Adeoti who brought deep clarity and insights having been involved in transforming rural life and especially lives of rural children facilitating inclusive impactful education that bridges education and skills gap, improve their thinking, creativity and innovativeness, capacity, agency and possibilities, helping the children grow into developing solutions and future leaders impacting their immediate community and society at large.
We first ascertained the role and importance of children and young people in agriculture, where we affirmed that young people are important for the future of agriculture not only serving as sustainable workforce replacement for the sector but also helping to maintain other agricultural functions (for instance conserving biodiversity and sustainability) and establishing food solutions through creative and innovative endeavours.
The conclusion was reached that children are malleable and worth the investment of education and on sustainable agriculture beneficial for the environment, where they would more likely embody such in the future.
We also assessed the importance of education in preparing children for this important role, understanding the huge educational gap and with consideration for agricultural education in bridging the gap.
Nigeria’s has 18.5 million out-of-school children. This is highest in the world. The figure represents over 8% of the Nigerian population and even embedded inequality across gender and regions. Children of primary school age constitute 55.5% of the 18.5 million out-of-school children. Education share of national budget is low and fair away from UNESCO 25% recommendations.
It was determined that poverty, cultural barriers, infrastructure and ineffective use of resources were the causal factors.While the potential for agricultural education and engagement to remedy this was considered, we delineated between engaging children in agriculture and child labour often seen synonymous as there are about 160 million children involved in child labour across the world and 60% occurring in agriculture.
Adebayo informed that that intent and who benefits from such activity were key differentiators and push for the need for sensitization on this in conjunction parents and teachers.
Ways to meaningfully engage children in agriculture were seen to, where Adeoti gave practical insights with their works at Bani Agribusiness Solutions how they were creatively and innovatively engaging school children in agriculture and assigning age-appropriate tasks.
Of important mention is the 4-H method of agricultural education, with the importance of education, mastery and autonomy around individual interest which helps to ensure belonginess and sustainability, and the emphasis on generosity -to use what is learnt to help others and the society.
Also, while agricultural education was deemed effective in remedying the educational gap and serving other benefits instilling life skills in children helping with navigating the world, it was was not seen as the sole remedy however an integral part of a holistic fix.
The event concluded with contrasting two different societies (US and Nigeria) on education and agriculture of the lens of the guest’s experience, and drawing insights and things to adopt to improve the Nigerian education and agriculture, while advice on navigating career through the lived experience of the guest was given which entailed focus, discipline, hard work, communicating and documenting efforts, networking, leveraging social media.
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