For many years, farming has been considered by the youths as a domain for old people. Upon completion of their studies, young people have been leaving farms in rural areas and trooping to cities and urban areas in search of white-collar jobs. However, things are changing, albeit gradually, thanks to new innovations in agriculture, which are helping farmers predict rainfalls, combat diseases, manage crops and sell products online.

Yara Africa & Asia (YAA) launched the Yara Leadership Academy for MSMEs in association with Kuza. Working closely with the Yara Social Impact Team, Kuza has customized its flagship  program, Leadership Academy, aimed at building future-fit competencies and expanding leadership capabilities of 100,000 MSME business owners – prioritizing youth and women-led businesses  within Yara International's communities by 2030, with 1,000 MSMEs in India and Kenya to benefit in 2022.

On 21 June 2022, Innovation Day kicked off the IFAD’22 Conference, bringing together 74 speakers representing the governments of Colombia, Finland, Italy, Israel, Kenya, and the United States, and top executives from the public and private sector, academia, civil society, research organizations and international financial institutions to share knowledge on how to originate, pilot, test, and scale innovative solutions in rural agricultural development.

On 27 June 2022, a high level regional event hosted by FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific kicked off conversations around enabling inclusive rural and agrifood system transformation through digitalization. This even brought together the industry thought leaders, captains and the ministerial teams from across the region. 

The initiative will be geared towards empowering the front-line extension workers across multiple programs of Heifer in Africa with a structured incubation model that promotes their businesses to scale, as a pathway to becoming agripreneurs building sustainable businesses. Sriram Bharatam, Kuza’s founder says when you bring tools to partners together with a common, shared vision and values, you can create magic.