III. CHAT SHOW ON YOUTH AND AGRICULTURAL INVESTMENTS

A panel of four speakers were asked to speak before fellow participants and share their experiences and initiatives regarding the youth’s role in agricultural investments and development.

The first set of speakers, Mr. Duong Nhu Mung, a member of the Cooperative for Agricultural Production and Services from Vietnam, discussed the needs of the youth sector to be able to engage and benefit from agricultural investments, and Mr. Him Noeun, Project Manager of Farmers and Nature Net and Coordinator of CamboDHRRA.

The second set of speakers, Mr. Soukaseum Bodhisane, representing the private sector, is Director of the Lao Farmer Product (LFP), and Dr. Htet Kyu, representing CSOs, is the Land Policy Advisor of GRET Myanmar, discussed the services their respective organizations provide to youth sector.   

Mr. Mung, a farmer and member of a cooperative, shared that they produce seedlings, livestock, tea and oranges.  He cited as one of the main problems that prevents them from expanding their business or operations is the inaccessibility of credit due to numerous requirements and high interest rates.  He also cited access to market information (i.e. what products are in high demand in the market, where can their products be sold, etc.) as a key need for farmers.  Another need he cited was access to better production technologies.

Mr. Nouen of Farmers and Nature Net, shared that Cambodia has a large labor force but has been decreasing mainly due to competition from other sectors (i.e. industrial sector) and migration to other countries to find better opportunities. 

Mr. Nouen cited the following services they provide to their farmers:

a)     Capacity building/training in “agricultural techniques” for rice, vegetable and fruits production and processing;

b)    Organizing members into production groups and then linking them with private companies that serves as buyers of their products;

c)     Assistance in the marketing and packaging of their products; and

d)    Assistance in accessing credit/capital.

Mr. Nouen also enumerated the following needs of farmers, especially for the young ones:

a)     Greater access to affordable credit (i.e. low or zero interest);

b)    Incentives and support for young farmers who go into new agribusiness ventures;

c)     Marketing support; and

d)    Development of vocational/”hard skills” (i.e. “agricultural techniques,” food processing, accounting, etc.); and “soft skills” (i.e. communication skills, people skills and community relations/organizing skills).

Mr. Bodhisane, shared that LFP is a small agribusiness enterprise that buys raw materials (mainly organic rice and tea) from small local farmers that they have trained and formed into organizations, and then “commercialize” these products (i.e. processing, packaging and marketing).  LFP provide officers of the partner farmers’ organizations technical trainings in business management, accounting, organic standards, the 10 principles of organic farming and processing, proper storage and transport of their produce. In addition, LFP also provides the farmers organizations zero interest and zero collateral loans to finance their infrastructure, equipment, and funds for buying the produce of the farmers, and cover 50% of the very high cost of organic certification.

Mr. Bodhisane also cited the following difficulties they are facing:

a)     Their product is not competitive because of the very high cost of transportation.  He cited that the cost of transporting their products from Vientiane to Bangkok is equivalent to the cost of transporting to Europe; and

b)    Access to local credit remains very difficult.  The reason they can provide zero interest and zero collateral loans to their partner organizations and also why they mainly export their products to Europe is because of their access to pre-financing from European.

Dr. Kyu shared their experience in two regional projects he is involved with.  The first project is the Agro-Ecology Learning Alliances in Southeast Asia to form a strong network among small holder farmers in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam to support the introduction of sustainable agriculture farming methods as an alternative to the existing and dominant chemical-dependent system of farming.  Dr. Kyu also shared their major finding that majority of the farmers that are practicing sustainable agriculture or organic agriculture are young farmers.  Thus, with the second phase of the said project, they will focus on the young farmers.

The second project is the Mekong Regional Land Governance Project which involves land tenure security for small holders and ethnic/indigenous peoples.  The project involves working with and providing support to certain civil society organizations and farmers organizations who are involved in the advocacy for land governance, in particular the recognition of customary/traditional tenurial practices in the upland areas.  It also involves the formulation of guidelines for responsible investments in agriculture to avoid “land grabbing” or the displacement of small holder farmers by big investors.

Dr. Kyu also expressed surprise with the existence of the CFS-RAI or of guidelines focusing on the role of youth with regards to responsible investments in agriculture.