Re-Engaging Youth In Agriculture (ReYa)
The Concept
The disengagement of youth from agricultural systems is a challenge for sustainability. The problem is multidimensional. Firstly, young urban dwellers raised without any links to the countryside are disconnected from the land and the realities of production and their food. As a consequence they are unaware of the social, economic and environmental impact of our global food system. In the age where food production and distribution is increasingly dominated by transnational chains and supermarkets and consumer choices of the middle and upper classes favor products derived from monocrop systems that are available for purchase in plastic packages at the supermarket during any season of the year, it is important that we educate our youth so they are cognizant of where their food comes from and the impacts their food consumption choices have on family farmers and local production systems. Secondly, family farming around the world is threatened by the lack of succession. The average age of farmers is increasing while pressures such as; price competition from commercial farming, high entry barriers for new farmers, negative social stigma surrounding the profession, and rural exodus, among other factors, erode the pool of eager young farmers willing and able to replace their older counterparts.
GAEA's ReYA project will be an initiative that works to identify some of this issues. This project aims to increase awareness about sustainable agriculture among the new younger generation of consumers and inspire youth to rekindle their links to food production through small scale food production projects that could be as simple as a backyard herb gardening, and fight to counter the predominantly negative stigma against agricultural careers by facilitating inspirational classroom encounters with successful and passionate farmers.
GAEA's ReYA project will be an initiative that works to identify some of this issues. This project aims to increase awareness about sustainable agriculture among the new younger generation of consumers and inspire youth to rekindle their links to food production through small scale food production projects that could be as simple as a backyard herb gardening, and fight to counter the predominantly negative stigma against agricultural careers by facilitating inspirational classroom encounters with successful and passionate farmers.
Expected Outputs
The project will contribute to these goal with three outputs:
- Short videos portraying youth perspectives on agriculture from around the world
- Flexible curriculum sets available for use to sensitize youth and students to agriculture and agri-food systems and local, national, and international scales. The curriculum will aim to introduce youth to the wide range of environmental impacts of food consumption choices by investigating the food miles of ingredients in their lunch boxes.
- Practical "how to" guides encouraging youth to try out their "green thumbs" at home.
AcHievements to date
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To date we have:
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How can You Help or Participate?
Are you interested in this project? Would you like to get involved talking to youth where you are about their views of agriculture and or developing curriculum material and "how to" guides? Email us!
This project is entirely volunteer run, you can also email us if you'd like to donate to the project.
This project is entirely volunteer run, you can also email us if you'd like to donate to the project.
