Author: Stephen Adeyemo
A young entrepreneur completes an agribusiness programme with a solid idea and the skills to execute it but has no access to finance.
Another is ready to scale but hits regulatory bottlenecks and inconsistent markets. Both are capable. Both are prepared. Yet neither moves forward.
This is not a talent gap. It is a systems gap.
Youth engagement has rightly become a focus across Africa. The African Union’s Malabo Declaration encourages member states to create jobs across agricultural value chains, while the AfDB’s ENABLE Youth Programme has supported thousands of agripreneurs in over 30 countries.
National initiatives such as Ghana’s Youth in Agriculture, Nigeria’s NPower Agro, and Kenya’s Ajira Digital and Agribusiness Fund reflect growing recognition of the role youth can play in driving transformation.
The opportunity is undeniable. Africa is home to the youngest population in the world, with over 60 percent under the age of 25, and agriculture remains a major employer and engine of economic growth. The challenge is that participation alone is not enough.
Young people are trained, included, and counted but too rarely positioned to build, lead, and scale within the system.
Why Participation Is Not Enough
Across the continent, youth engagement is still largely driven by trainings, pilot programmes, and short-term interventions.
These efforts are valuable, but they rarely translate into long-term opportunities
More importantly, they often confine young people to primary production, overlooking the broader agricultural ecosystem, from processing and logistics to input systems, data services, and agribusiness innovation.
Agriculture is not just farming. And Africa’s youth are not just labour.
The Systems Gap
The biggest barrier is not ambition. It is structure.
A young entrepreneur may have the skills, but no access to finance. Another may have a viable business idea, but no route to market.
Training, financing, policy, and markets often operate in silos.
When systems are fragmented, potential remains just that, potential.
As Ndidi Nwuneli notes in her Stanford Social Innovation Review article, “Creating a Level Playing Field for Social Innovators in Africa”, transformation depends on creating inclusive systems that enable local innovators to lead. Her point captures the core challenge for youth in agriculture: When the ecosystem itself is uneven, potential alone cannot drive transformation.
From Labour to Leadership
In many contexts, young people are still positioned at the lowest levels of the value chain, often as labour rather than leaders
Yet across the continent, a different story is emerging.
Young people are building agri-tech solutions. They are managing distribution networks. They are driving climate-smart innovations.
But these successes are happening despite the system, not because of it.
The real shift lies in how young people are positioned within that system.
Not just as participants in production, but as entrepreneurs, innovators, and decision-makers shaping how agricultural value chains function and grow.
This means moving beyond basic capacity building to ensuring access to finance, markets, and networks that allow young people to build viable, scalable enterprises.
What Needs To Change
Moving beyond participation requires deliberate shifts across three dimensions. These are practical pathways to help young people transition from participants to leaders within agricultural systems.
- From Programmes to Pathways: Youth initiatives must go beyond one-off trainings to structured pathways linking skills development with finance, mentorship, and market opportunities.
For example, maize farmers trained in improved production can be connected to input financing, aggregation platforms, and off-take agreements with processors.
Similarly, youth in soybean processing benefit from business support, equipment financing, and market linkages.
- From Access to Ownership: Providing access is not enough; youth must lead agribusinesses and influence value chains.
In cassava, this could mean managing seed enterprises or operating aggregation centres with structured supply agreements. For yams, youth can lead seed production, manage distribution networks, and engage in platforms that set standards and pricing.
- From Fragmentation to Ecosystems: Sustainable impact requires coordination across policy, finance, markets, and innovation.
In dairy, youth-led milk aggregation thrives when government policies align with private investment in collection centres and cold chain infrastructure.
For potatoes, linking seed system support with investment in storage and processing opens reliable market pathways.
When systems work together, youth-led businesses are not just viable; they are positioned to scale.
The Role of Institutions
Transforming youth engagement is not the responsibility of one actor.
- Governments must reduce structural barriers.
- The private sector must invest across value chains.
- Development partners must design programmes that prioritise sustainability over short-term outputs.
At Sahel Consulting, we ensure that this systems approach remains central, while working at the intersection of policy, markets, and enterprise development to drive inclusive agricultural transformation.
An Intentional Call To Action
Africa’s youth are already proving what’s possible: innovating, building, and leading in ways that can transform agriculture.
Yet potential alone is not enough. Without deliberate systems, pathways, and support, many promising ideas stall before they reach scale.
This is a moment to shift the narrative:
- Move beyond short-term programs to real pathways that link skills, finance, and markets.
- Give youth a seat at the table in decision-making, investment planning, and policy design.
- Connect innovation to networks and mentorship that allow ideas to grow and thrive.
When young people are treated as drivers, not just participants, they don’t just farm, they shape markets, pioneer solutions, and redefine the possibilities of African agriculture.
So here’s the question for you:
What one change in your community, organisation, or value chain could help young people move from participation to leadership in agriculture?
Your answer could inspire the next idea, partnership, or solution that drives real change.
About the Author
Stephen Adeyemo, MBA is an Analyst at Sahel Consulting Agriculture and Nutrition Limited.
