From city to soil: Young graduates seek a better life in rural areas

While the global unemployment rate is declining, this hasn't benefited everyone.Youth unemployment continues to be much higher than the rate for adults, with some 73 million young people all over the world struggling to find work and make a living.

In cities across the world, many university graduates are either jobless or not earning enough to survive in an urban setting. This is why some young people are leaving the city and moving to rural areas – where they are learning to live off the land.

Nurturing nature in greenhouses

Even with a law degree, newly graduated Tamar Rurua wasn’t earning enough to make ends meet in the city of Senaki in western Georgia.

She and her husband decided to leave Senaki in search of stability in the nearby village of Lebaghature. Here, they settled into a slower-paced life, surrounded by one hectare of land and hazel trees, but it wasn’t until she became a mother that Tamar turned to farming as a source of income for her young family of four.

In 2023, she applied for a youth grant through IFAD’s Dairy Modernisation and Market Access project. With the money, Tamar purchased a greenhouse to grow tomatoes and barley, and used the rest of the land to farm maize and hazelnuts.

Thanks to the greenhouse, Tamar has year-round growth with minimal production risks, giving her a steady income that was out of reach in Senaki. Working on the family farm also means she spends more time with her children while running a successful business and sharing her knowledge and skills with the local community.

Jeni Gergaia provides for her family by growing and selling aromatic plants. Photo credit: Levan Gergaia

 

Not far from Tamar’s farm lives Jeni Gergaia, who realised soon after graduating in Zugdidi that living in rural Lebaghature was more profitable than working in a big city.

Armed with a passion for aromatic plants and a grant, Jeni installed her own greenhouse and taught herself how to grow herbs like lavender, rosemary, thyme and jasmine, and market them online.

Selling aromatic plants has seen Jeni's income grow, which in turn allows her to provide for her family and save up for her next business plan: opening a guesthouse where she can cook local dishes for visitors.

A homecoming with a twist

Tang Wenwen prepares a local crayfish stew for visitors. Photo credit: Mingqun Wen

 

Tang Wenwen graduated from one of China’s top universities with a master’s degree in Embedded Systems. Like most of her peers, she was expected to find work as a computer engineer. But Wenwen had other plans.

Inspired by regions in China with a rich history of agriculture, she decided to leave the crowded streets of Beijing and return to the soil. In 2015 she went back to her hometown of Guang’an in Sichuan province.

“I considered computer science as a tool, not as a career, I wanted to use it to promote social change,” says Wenwen.

Armed with the support of two friends, Wenwen worked to elevate her community’s agriculture through the ChuShan Agricultural Valley, a farming cooperative set up to improve agriculture using modern tools to fuel the local economy.

The cooperative members soon realized that to do this, they needed investment. Through an IFAD-funded IPRAD-SN grant, Wenwen and her team provided job opportunities for small-scale farmers growing fruits and vegetables, as well as raising chickens and fish.

With her computer programming skills, Wenwen set up a digital supermarket to connect directly with consumers. In addition to selling produce, the cooperative also brought tourism to the area and introduced visitors to the joys of harvesting and local cuisine, like stewed crayfish.

“Agriculture needs to keep up with the era of artificial intelligence and big data,” says Wenwen. “Those who understand computer science might not understand agricultural development and vice versa.”

Luckily, Wenwen has a solid understanding of both and uses it to help local small-scale farmers prosper and thrive.

Young employees lead the way

In Cameroon, IFAD is working to create green opportunities for young people where previously there were none.

After graduating, Lionel Patrick Ateba spent much of his time looking for employment. “Many businesses weren’t recruiting fresh graduates,” says Lionel.

Facing unemployment, he turned to agriculture with the Family Green Corp, an agribusiness that produces bio-fertilizers and ecological charcoal as climate-smart alternatives to chemical fertilizers and fossil fuels.

Thanks to the energy and commitment of young employees like Lionel, the business is flourishing. Everybody wins – consumers have greater access to food grown with safe fertilizers and young people are being employed.

As more young people turn to agriculture, IFAD helps create employment opportunities through projects and grants, so that they can stay connected to rural life, earn a living and play a part in growing and selling nutritious and sustainable food.

Publication date: 20 December 2023