Over the years, it has been observed that young people pay much attention to recreational activities and entertainment, such as football and other sports. Sadly, agriculture in Sierra Leone has not made the list of interesting activities due to the current hardships, migration of young people to urban area and the challenges faced by farmers.
We have been working with young people in Karina District (Sanda Magbolontho), encouraging these young people to engage in agricultural practice, using football as a platform to educate them about the important of agriculture, and its ability to combat food insecurity, and the creation of job opportunity through agricultural intervention to empower young people, their communities, and the country at large.
This approach will be much impactful, empowering young people with more information on the important of agriculture through participatory approach such as workshops, seminars, and other community engagements to examine agriculture as a main driver for economic growth, nutrition, and food security.
One of the current challenges to agricultural education is how to meet the challenges of providing education and training for rural development rather than agriculture alone.
It is obvious that the old fashion curriculum that focused on production agriculture is no longer able to produce educated people who can deal with wider problems of rural development.