Youth in Agriculture
There is great potential for employment growth in the agricultural sector. But, we face a big problem: How to make agriculture attractive to young people. Evidence suggests that most young people are not attracted to agriculture and to the rural areas. A farmer has to work hard, and in almost every case, settle for very low incomes, living in poor conditions with little infrastructure and little prospect of improving their livelihoods. The anecdotal evidence suggests that most young people do not find this lifestyle attractive, and leave in search of something different. The graph below shows how sizeable this phenomenon is of young people abandoning opportunities in the agriculture sector. Source: Census 2015. These are smoothed ratios standardised for each age. This graph shows (smoothed) ratios of the number of residents in Dili compared to other municipalities. If the age dist...