Africa-Press – Uganda. Heifer International, an NGO, and partners have pledged to nurture more than 250 agro-technology ideas from innovative youth to maturity.
Speaking at the gala night for the Youth in Technology AYuTe challenge last week, Ms Adesuwa Ifedi, the senior vice president of Heifer Africa, said at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, they realised it was time to act on the future of agriculture in the continent.
Ms Ifedi said upon reviewing previous youth projects in agriculture, they realised that the African youth population is an asset.
“The youth have always been looked at as the continent’s liabilities that we always have to create jobs for so that they do not get into trouble, but with a population of more than 60 percent, we are sitting on the continent’s largest asset,” she said.
Ms Ifedi said youth should be given an enabling environment to create the agricultural technologies.
Winners
The NGO, together with its partners NMG’s NTV Uganda, Equity Bank, MasterCard Foundation, Famunera, Ministry of Agricuture, and RSM East Africa, handed over more than Shs100m to five youth who took part in the AYuTe challenge.
Mr Shaduracka Monday, the winner, bagged Shs50m to carry out more research on his innovation of an environment friendly electric tractor.
The first runner-up, Mr John Charles Nuwagaba, got Shs30m to research on his solar water pump, while the second runner up, Mr Mike Ssali, walked away with Shs15m for his tomato grafting technology.
Mr Brian Byaruhanga, Mr Brian Natwijuka and Mr Charles Nuwagaba, who invented a digitised herd monitoring system, silage production and e-butcheries for beef, took Shs2.5m each.
Mr Fred Bwino Kyakulaga, the State Minister for Agriculture, thanked the organisers of the chanllenge, saying cutting edge technology will be the driving force for transforming agriculture from subsistence to commercial agriculture.
He added that the challenge fits in the vision and mission of the ministry, which is grappling with prolonged dry spells and declining food production, among other setbacks.
Mr Timothy Ntale, the head legal at NMG-Uganda, said the AYuTe challenge is in line with the NMG strategic objective of impact journalism as demonstrated in NTV’s Seeds of Gold show and Saturday Monitor’s Seeds of Gold magazine.
Mr George Kato, the head of distribution at Equity Bank, said Master Card Foundation has given them a grant through which they have so far disbursed more than Shs20b to youth-led projects.
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