youth have limited output control and decision-making and thus lack the resources to purchase land and become independent. [39]
Precision Ag and robotics, innovative food and data- connected agriculture in 2018 in the East African Community (EAC), between 66% and 86% of firms specialized in data-connected agriculture – that is, farming apps or providing enabling services for app development.
Challenge 10: Inability to fully capitalize on the opportunities from digital technology
[42]
Challenge 11: Entrepreneurship education in Tanzania
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased demand for digital services which has the potential to improve youth employment in Tanzania. A number of companies have developed digital tools to extend their services using virtual platforms. These developments are also evident in the agriculture sector. Vodacom, for example, has established the “M-kulima” platform. Tigo has established the “Tigo-kilimo” platform. There are also private individuals with operations focused on precision agriculture. Within the horticulture industry, TAHA is using digital means to extend its services by establishing a central; repository for horticulture sector, commonly referred to as TARIC. The system allows data sharing across the value chains. Despite these developments, there is a lack of coordination among key players/actors, especially in the digital agriculture space. Everyone is operating in silos. There is a need for the Ministry of Agriculture to take a lead coordination role. Coordination of digital services will ensure Tanzania is progressively able to tap into the advantages of new developments in the ICT space, which have exposed rural youth to a fast-moving world. Those youth who wish to engage in agriculture want to adopt modern technologies that require more technical skills and less energy. The development of the telecommunication sector has, in a short period of time, changed every aspect of young people’s lives, even in rural areas of Tanzania. For example, mobile financing services are widely used by young people in rural and urban areas. They track and transmit important information using mobile technology. Growth of the digital platform economy within agriculture is increasingly becoming an important pathway to development. Digital agricultural platforms (such as farming apps) are driving e-commerce [40] and the “servicification” of agriculture in developing regions. Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe have been described as hotspots for digital-tech solutions. Of these, Agplatforms, or farming apps, are some of the most common forms through which farmers have been ‘platformised' in agricultural value chains. A research paper on ‘AgriTech Disruptors in East Africa’ shows that, of a sample of 70 AgriTech innovative firms. [41]
Formal business education in Tanzania is still mostly classroom-based, aiming to deliver technical skills, business management skills and personal entrepreneurial skills as important learning outcomes. Creativity and problem-solving are gaining in importance as important entrepreneurial skills. Integrated Entrepreneurship Education (IEE) also plays a role in the teaching of knowledge and skills that enable individual students to plan, start and run their own businesses in the formal or informal sector. The state of entrepreneurship education in Tanzania has a lot of implications for the public and private sectors and donor interventions. There are substantial gaps to be closed in the country’s entrepreneurship education landscape. Inadequate entrepreneurship education in Tanzania’s educational institutions sends signals that the situation is even worse for disadvantaged youth who have not been inside the classrooms of the few institutions that happen to offer entrepreneurship training. [44] [43]
Challenge 12: Lack of agribusiness skills among the youth population
Most youth in Tanzania enter the agribusiness career and the labor market unprepared, as they lack appropriate agribusiness-related skills. This is chiefly because about 70% of youth aged between 14 and 17 are not enrolled in secondary education, and thus they enter agribusiness careers and the labor market unprepared. They lack appropriate agribusiness-related skills. Even those who are able to continue with secondary and tertiary education, only around 38% of them are medium or highly skilled. Most of the graduates from universities and colleges lack practical and employable skills. Thus, there is a mismatch between labor market needs and what universities and colleges produce. Incubation/internship and training industry-government linkages (TIGLs) could address the mismatch. However, these options have not only remained weak but also exclude agriculture. As a result, most of the youth in agribusiness lack practical skills. [46] [45]
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Youth Enterprise Policy Analysis Report
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