Young Senegalese Women Market Agribusiness on YouTube

Africa News with AP

A group of young women in Senegal have successfully launched an agribusiness by combining their new skills in filmmaking and farming, using social media to market their produce online.

YouTube is not the first place you would expect to find a young farmer like Anta, but she and her four friends are now making a successful living cultivating vegetables in their home village of Ngoundiane.

Previously, like many young women, they were forced to migrate to the city for low-paid, menial jobs. A third of women are unemployed in Senegal, with even higher rates among youngsters.

In 2022, they the women joined the Agrijeune’s project, funded by the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the African Development Bank, and the Senegalese government. It is directly reaching 80,000 young people and creating over 8,000 decent jobs.

It aims to provide training and loans to rural youth in Senegal so they can set up their own agribusinesses, of which 50 per cent are for rural young women.

But Anta and her friends’ say that, as women, there was a negative reaction in the community to their participation in the project.

“Even before Agrijeune, people laughed at us and made fun of us when we were doing the training. And us, young girls, if we do agriculture, we will remain poor,” says Anta.

Loise Waruguru Maina, a technical expert at IFAD says young rural women in Senegal face multiple challenges.

“They lack access to productive resources like land and finances. They have significantly higher illiteracy rates in some rural areas,” she says.

“They also lack representation in rural institutions and lack formal training in business management and managing companies."

Despite the challenges they have faced, Anta and her friends now successfully grow vegetables like peppers and tomatoes.

With the IT training they received, a loan to start their business, and their YouTube channel, they are well on their way to building a better future for themselves.

“The idea for our YouTube channel, Zenith TV, was to publicise our activity and do marketing too. And us, young girls, if we just do agriculture, we will remain poor,” says Anta.

As a result, they have no plans to move back to the city or following their male counterparts abroad.

Maina says the project has seen great results to date, with increased entrepreneurial spirit among the young women, and increased incomes, not only to meet their daily needs, but also to reinvest and expand their businesses.

“These young women are very vibrant and are great champions and leaders within their communities,” she says.