Energize the Agriculture – Young Entrepreneurs for Rural Development

Most of the agriculture in developing countries can be characterized by the use of rudimentary tools and the lack of funds for modern, high-performance equipment. These shortcomings make the agri-businesses non-productive and non-competitive in international markets. Moreover, in isolated rural areas, in arid regions, in the mountains or on islands, farms and many rural communities are not connected to electricity, making the development of small businesses even more difficult. In these economic conditions, poverty is threatening local population and no job opportunities are available. Young people are often in the worst situation, as they are willing to work but end up being forced to relocate to larger cities or to immigrate to developed countries due to the lack of local employment opportunities.Because of the above, the situation of young farmers has to be improved; this project will contribute to the development of small businesses in agriculture and will help young people to modernize their farms by giving them the knowledge and the skills necessary to design and to make their own farm equipment that uses renewable and free energy sources. The project aims to teach young people, who in turn will teach other young people from their communities, to start small businesses in agriculture or to boost their already existing businesses by using renewable energy sources in agriculture in order to increase productivity. They will be taught to assemble simple water pumping and irrigation systems using photovoltaic panels, to cultivate energy crops which will provide energy for their farmhouses, to create windmills and watermills which will provide energy for their farms.During the project, curricula and teaching-learning material will be prepared, tested and adapted for 3 different countries and natural environments: Nepal, with mountain landscape, Brazil, with both forest vegetation and semi-arid regions, and Fiji, which is an isolated island. Agroenergy incubators and training centers will be created in these countries, where local young people will be learn to construct simple equipment for the farms and will be able to start small agribusiness. These incubators will be endowed with systems which functioning can be observed and components which will be used to teach young people to construct renewable energy based agricultural equipments.Also local trainers will be trained, in order to teach other young people at the incubators.