Strategies for generational renewal and youth engagement in agriculture.: Reversing urbanization megatrends for rural development.

Across regions, farming is characterized by an aging population, with many older farmers approaching retirement age but facing uncertain or inadequate pension systems. This often leads to delayed or incomplete farm transfer, creating bottlenecks for younger generations seeking to enter the sector. At the same time, young people encounter significant barriers that make taking over family farms, or starting new agricultural enterprises, difficult and, in many cases, unattractive.

This webinar aims to facilitate dialogue on intergenerational transfer and farm succession, highlight youth perspectives on barriers to entering and taking over farms and identify policy gaps related to pensions, land transfer, and youth incentives as well as co-develop actionable recommendations to make farming a viable and attractive career for young people.

Agenda

Moderator: Sean Keane, FAO

15:00 | Welcome and Opening Remarks

15.05 | Setting the Scene: the generational challenge

• FAO “The Status of Youth in Agrifood Systems” report team (8 mins) (https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/f9170607-f78c-4d6c-9275-68481bb08ca6/content)

15.20 | Key note cases on solutions to youth engagement

• Youth cooperatives, Carlo Murer, Mountain Partnership (10 mins)
• Pension schemes: China case (5 min) and Irish case (5 mins)

15.40 | Q&A (15 mins)

15.55 | Realities of taking over (or not) – short presentations highlighting challenges, experiences and solutions ( 5 mins each)

• Young Pastoralist Representative
• Young Woman Farmer Leader
• Asia, WFO
• Italy case
• Mongolia case

16.20 – 16.30 | Closing remarks

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