ICT and youth opportunities in rural areas.

Information communication technology popularly referred to as ICT, is a phrase that has gained popularity in the recent years the world over. Prior to the “Google”and “Ipad” generation, very little about ICT was known especially in less developed world, with the majority of us looking at it as a foreign concept especially in the African context. Much of the government businesses were conducted manually with papers flying all over from office to office as memos. The private sector was also not left out in what I may call the “paper era”, which meant for instance that bank transactions had to be done on paper including deposits and withdrawal of funds. But then came slowly the emergence of computers and the internet, which redefined how people communicated.  People no longer had to own a personal box at the local post office where mails were dropped in; one only needed an email account opened at no cost with internet access as the only requirement which was widely available in local cyber cafes albeit at a cost.

This sudden adoption and tech-craze that swept across the world, was largely pushed forward by the young people-mostly in urban areas and it came to symbolize a paradigm shift in the way we conduct our businesses. This has continued to grow in leaps and bounds with new tools coming up almost every day. People are able to share videos,documents, music, and socialize on the internet using tools like Facebook, Skype, Myspace, Twitter e.t.c .

Earlier on, people could only access these amazing services on their desktops, but the developments in the mobile industry has continued pushing the capabilities of the small handsets, from its traditional function of just voice and text messaging to a more complex complete package of both radio, camera and video, GPS etc.

Sadly though, all these amazing technological innovations are only limited to or enjoyed by folks in urban areas especially in developing countries. The penetration rate of these technologies hasn’t been that impressive. That could be attributed to factors like poor or a complete lack of infrastructure that can support them. The internet for instance was and still is- unfortunately, only limited to certain towns with electricity supply that would power the cybercafés. There’s also the issue of low bandwidth which makes internet charges quite high for peasants since they are bailed on per minute basis. The standards of living among the rural folk are also an impediment since the per capita income can’t spare cash for luxury which is what internet access was perceived.

The development of cheaper mobile phones, coupled with the review of communication charges by mobile operators to include tariffs for people on the lower cadre of the economy has greatly enhanced mobile penetration to areas that were hitherto enclosed with the only source of information –if any, being the radio. This has opened up the areas in terms of business and information flow. Young people are able to send and receive money easily without stepping into a bank. This means one can obtain a small capital wired/sent to them to start a small business via a mobile phone like its popular in Kenya.

The governments have also taken up the initiative and challenge positively to open up these areas through various programs. The Kenyan government for instance has an ICT policy in place to oversee the distribution of technology to the rural areas. This has been achieved in collaboration with other players and stakeholders in the ICT sector like the computer for schools program that has seen the distribution of computers to remote schools and community centers. There are also ICT hubs set up in villages, equipped with solar panels and modems for internet accessibility. In Rwanda, the one laptop per child (OLPC) program was rolled out in schools to transition the country from the “blackboard and chalk” education to a digital one. With such efforts, areas that were enclosed would certainly be opened up since information would easily flow in there. This means that students in rural areas for instance would be able to access recent learning materials on the internet thus be in a position to compete with their urban counter parts. This connection also means that students unable to afford the education offered in urban centers will enroll for distance classes thus obtaining a certificate at a fairly low cost.

Economic benefits are also likely to be accrued by the presence of ICT infrastructure in rural areas. The young folks would be able to benefit from the business process outsourcing (BPO) by taking online jobs for clients located thousands of miles across the world. The internet would also enable them advertise their business and projects thus exposing their SMEs, service and products to a wider market.  Youths from areas rich with scenic beauty could use cheap video cameras to capture the beautiful landmarks in their areas like water falls, games etc and share them with the outside world via channels like Youtube, flicker etc thus attracting tourists which would bring them revenue from the visitors.

There are also other benefits like internet publishing and opportunities offered by companies like Google i.e. Adwords and Adsense where people can generate revenue through the number of clicks generated by their adverts.

The benefits of ICT in rural areas among the youth are therefore immense. Their full potential are yet to be fully exploited, but the good news is that, so much is happening both in terms of ICT policy, institutional capacity building and the enhancement and harmonization of the legal framework governing the whole ICT sector to deal with issues on copyrights and intellectual property right, right to information access vis a vis government regulations. The institutionalization of ICT among the governments has seen many programs and services rolled out using ICT which makes it harder for the rural folk to ignore it as a luxury.

Youth and Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities.

Back in the days when i was still a young man, i remember my mum made sure we know where the food that we found on the table came from; so she'd organize every weekend for us to go to the farm and help in either weeding  or planting the seeds. For me this wasn't exactly comfortable for a number of reasons; One, it clearly affected my program (yes kids also have them!) to go play soccer which i was particularly fond of, together with my pals. The issue i had is that, since we were living in a pretty much urban area, i kinda felt uncomfortable carrying the jembe(hoe) around because i didn't know what my friends or worse still, the girls would think of me. But that didn't worry my mum because somebody had to work on the farm and that person had to be me and my siblings.
As i write this article, i reminisce on my past and i have no regrets whatsoever simply because, despite the fact that i was raised in an urban environment, i was in a good position to march up or at least give my counterparts raised in reserve or farmlands, a run for their money as far as farm work is concerned. So much has changed since my old days. I remember in primary school we had a subject called agriculture which was intentionally taught in the carriculum by the government through the Ministry of Education in order to equip everyone with that critical knowledge in agricultural practice because it was believed at the time that every one ought to have at the minimum, some knowledge on farming. This trend gained its momentum in my country Kenya in the period just after independence where the president at the time rallied all and sundry with the famous call of "turudi mashambani" - a swahili phrase for lets get back to the farms. This was our small Agrarian Revolution of sorts. The idea was for people to gain independence not just from the political standpoint but also on matters of economy and food security. People therefore  learnt about different farming practices in schools, plant and animal diseases, crop varieties, soil management e.t.c. and which were examined at the end of the term.  A great deal of the existing successful farmers we have today, owe their success or at least some of it to the kind of training they received back in the days which formed their foundation in agriculture. Today as i write this, so much has changed. Agriculture was merged with science in the curriculum review by the ministry which therefore watered down its value and the depth of its content.
This has therefore meant that we as a country lack the suckers as it were that'd replace the bananas once they are gone.
Most young people shun careers in agriculture and natural sciences in general and instead prefer pursuing careers in other areas like law, medicine and IT which are considered lucrative in the modern world. This has therefore led to the mushrooming of learning institutions aimed at meeting this ever expanding desire and hunger for success. The government has also pumped in huge sums of money coupled with a raft of legislation aimed at boosting and attracting private investors in the education sector. The  result of these initiative has been that the so called lucrative sectors like IT and law, have been over flooded by the many candidates who are continually being churned out every other year by these colleges. Many young people who had hopes of a better future in these fields have ended up being a disappointed lot in search of an ever elusive employment opportunity.
The government also is facing a huge challenge in the sense that, a lot of these young people are well educated yet there isn't any meaningful work to engage them since the market can only absorb too many of them. The health of the global economy hasn't help much either with the recent poor performing of the local currency against the world major currencies like the dollar and the sterling pound, coupled with the global economic crunch that hit the US and Europe in the recent days. The situation in Europe has seen countries declaring bankruptcy like Greece and Portugal due to huge debts; This therefore means that people should expect huge job cuts as companies prepare themselves for the looming disaster.
Agriculture has remained as the only hope for many people especially the youth. The Kenyan government for instance has only discovered this and in response it has initiated quite a number of community projects aimed at empowering people hence boosting their livelihood. Young people have been encouraged to form groups through which the government would channel funds to viable projects. This has seen a great deal of them building fish ponds for aquaculture, beekeeping, small scale dairy farming and rabbit keeping among many others whose products are sold both locally and abroad. So many young people have testified of the changes this projects have had on their lives in terms of improving their living standards and thus keeping them away from drugs and crime. Others with IT skills have also developed mobile and desktop applications that help farmers interact and share ideas on good farming methods, challenges and opportunities.
This achievements are laudable but there still remains opportunities which that remain untapped.
The governments ought to fast track the development and adoption of a youth policy and a framework on agriculture in order to cement the achievements made so far. This will boost the confidence of many young and upcoming small scale farmers who hitherto had shunned agriculture. The policy should address issues on land accessibility, subsidies and market for their products. The youth also ought to change their attitude as far as agriculture is concerned by embracing and appreciating the reality that agriculture could be the next biggest employer in the ever uncertain and shrinking environment of white collar jobs.
A mentor ship and exchange programs for the youth spearheaded by the veteran farmers should be encouraged, aimed at equipping them with the necessary skills on agriculture and entrepreneurship. These efforts and many others not mentioned here will go a long way in bringing that paradigm shift in our thinking and spell out the mysteries and attitude developed over many years.

ICT and Agriculture

Since the advent of the world wide web(www) way back in the late 1980s, the world was pretty much like an enclosed box with very minimal meaningful interactions taking place between people in the same villages let alone in a global context. Farmers in places like Africa basically engaged in the traditional barter trade system which involved at times travelling over long distances in search of a commodity that one was interested in in order to exchange for it and even that, they had to find someone who was also looking for the same commodity being sold or exchanged.
The other unique thing about Africa in the agricultural sector, is that, much of what is cultivated by many farmers like corn, potatoes and other serials, were actually introduced by early missionaries and erstwhile colonial governments and since then, very little in the form of diversification of the crops has actually happened. This has left the farmers with very little choices considering the fact that these same foods are actually staple in these areas and as such the people would be reluctant to try something different that could probably maximize on the available resources and boost their food security and nutrition.
This enclosed system also meant that during a  bumper harvest season, the farmer could only preserve so much in their stores while the remaining harvest going to waste due to such factors as pests and diseases or simply rotting.
These are some of the challenges that a traditional farmer went through and are still experienced by some who are still locked up as it were in different parts of the world where there's very minimal information flow or government intervention for that matter.
The Information and communication technology pretty much gained momentum in the early 2000s especially with the inventions that came up from various ICT players like Google with their search engine, Microsoft and ipad ans iphones that revolutionized the way information is transmitted. Later on, other developments picked up like the web2 and now web4 where people are no longer just the traditional consumers of information, but with the Wikipedia, blogs, social media and the like gaining momentum, everyone with any information to share has tools to publish and thus becoming both the consumer and publisher.
As part of this technological growth and innovation, agriculture has seen tremendous benefits and still continuous to develop and evolve owing to the drive by engineers and ICT technologies to come up with various tools, applications and products on agriculture which some are free for download, while others are obtained at a small fee.
Farmers groups in remote places in Africa and the developing world, have been able to develop websites where they showcase their products to a wider market beyond their traditional country or village boundaries thus boosting their profits and improving their livelihoods. Other organizations like FAO and the World bank have set up websites with lots and lots of information from case-studies conducted in different parts of the world concerning the trends in agriculture and issues  concerning natural resource management and climate change.
These resources have equipped the farmers with the necessary information especially concerning the effects of global warming thus cushioning them from the negatives impacts of such an occurrence like erratic weather patterns and drought. This has helped in avoiding wastage from crop destruction while at the same time, helping farmers embrace new technologies in the form of drought resistant crop varieties and modern farm management practices.
Technologies like global positioning system(GPS) and geographical information system(GIS), have helped especially large scale farmers engage in what is known as 'smart agriculture' where decisions are based on the locations of issues like the distribution of parasites and diseases thus avoiding random application of farm inputs that not only leads to wastage but also pollution.
Young people have also taken the challenge to innovate agriculture by designing mobile applications running on Android, Symbian and other mobile devices that help farmers interact effectively. The mobile money transfer in Kenya has also gained global plaudits and recognition for revolutionizing the way people do business. A farmer can now purchase fertilizer or receive payments from their produces using the popular Mpesa money transfer technology.
The list of the ICT impacts on agriculture are immense and if the current trend in technological development is anything to go by, we are yet to see amazing innovations that are mind boggling.
In conclusion, the developments in the ICT sector as far as agriculture is concerned would also require a comprehensive policy framework that will guide these developments by setting up standards and procedures that will harmonies all the other sectors including land tenure systems that directly affects agriculture. All the stakeholders in the agricultural sector especially the farmers also ought to be involved if possible at every step of the design and the innovation in order to boost their relevance and also focus on existing problems that affect the sector or individual unique scenarios. This will ensure that the end products are customised based on the needs and demand.