Why more are quitting formal jobs for farming East Africa

Quitting formal jobs for farming East Africa

Written by Abet Tonny

I previously wrote about youth disterest in agriculture across East Africa. This particular sharing is the revelation of the other side of the coin. More intelligent young and mature people continue to abandon their professions to do farming as a full time career. They say farming is very lucrative and time has proven them right. Let's explore more.

A young Annie Nyaga, a professional Biomedical Scientist from Egerton University of Kenya moving into farming and aspiring hundreds of other young people to join farming and years down the road, he annual return from farming cintinue inspiring more young people across East Africa to go farming. Annie is one of the many young professionals joining farming as a career. Allan Ahimbisibwe (Plant Dr) of Sparks Agro Initiative was a Statistician turned farmer. Allan continues to be one of the biggest inspiration in Uganda to young people to engage in agriculture.

Let's read briefly from Allan:
"I remember when I was growing up my dream was always to study hard ,pass with good grades ,go to makerere university (the best in the region) and get a good job in a bank specifically bank of Uganda.
Even when I got to university, we still had dreams of working in big organisations and earning good money.
But I successfully failed to achieve this even with my good grades and good course.
After graduating, I was lucky to get a job in a bank earning 500k a month ,at first I thought this was much money but after working for over 7months and I had no achievement not even a single saving ,I made a hard decision to resign.
I decided to think like I had no degree ,I actually forgot that I had even gone to makerere with a bachelor's in statistics
I went back to my mothers home and that's how my story of entrepreneurship started without capital."

Apunnyu Malcom is yet another young professional teacher turned Poultry farmer and poultry industry innovator of Eazehatch solar incubator.

Solar egg incubator made in Uganda

We can't forget about Bampata, of passion fruits. Bampata is a mature lady holding degree in nursing but upon her relocation lately to Uganda, she discovered the salary scale for nurses in Uganda was not attractive. She kept herself busy teaching before settling fully to her dream of passion fruit farming. ''It was my dream project from the start since I was a teacher at St. Kagwa Junior Primary School. I don’t regret quitting my professions because I am making money,” says Bampata.

Bampata earns millions from passion fruit annually

Back to Annie Nyaga. Bold decisions are taken by powerful people. To a number of young professionals, they would rather remain broke and revert their intelligence to following complex Hollywood movies than be seen engaging in farming. It's the same experience I had to face 3 year ago when I abandoned my profession as a Biomedical Technologist to follow my passion of owning a farm and being engaged fully in productive agriculture. For I was that promising young scientist but the salary scale was so disinteresting doubled by the fact that the profession was not my passion and my story is still building on. A great mix of reactions from college professors and parents often emerge. Could Annie have gone insane? Was someone testing his/her exclussive magical powers on Annie? What probably went wrong with this intelligent lady? Well, these are some of the questions that will keep repeating themselves among parents and stakeholders in academia and government. The payment scale for most prifessional jobs in East Africa is not attractive. And your rival, farming, once thought to be for losers and not lucrative is making a great come back with more reward of high return and a nice addition of wanted freedom when aspirants understand how it works. More successes from farmers continue to aspire young people across the region into farming. Lucrative crops like pumpkins, passion fruits, watermelon and animal production like keeping layers among others are rewarding farmers highly and the young people are watching. A local farmer who grows watermelon earns upto $4000 per acre under good agronomic practice in only 3 months with a small investment of $1000 only. Meaning this farmer gets a net profit of $3000. Meaning the young farmer guy has $1000 per month with benefit of freedom as one can only be in his garden 2 days in a week and still succeed highly.  A professional scientist like Annie and many other Ugandans earn $200 to.$300 per month meaning in 3 months they have $600 -$900 without a dot freedom. This is far below what a dedicated micro-scale fellow young person earns. It's also far below what a devoted illiterate taxi driver earns.

However, it's is good to note that farming is for people who are patient and those who are good to go with getting hands dirty and living lowly even though they are sometimes richer than many. One time I was working for an agrochemical company in Kampala city, these farmers would come simple and living moderate but the money they have often left me with more questions than answer. How could I be working in glass house, parading a large life yet earning only $200 a month which can't even sustain me in the city if I don't mix with shrewdness.

The discussion around youth enggement in agriculture continue to take bewildering shapes in East Africa with multiple scenes to inspire and intrigue. Handfuls of young knowledgeable people who studied agriculture and related courses sit waiting for formal jobs in Uganda where over 400,000 young people are chunned out from numerous learning institutions into the nation's skinny job market which can only accomodate 80,000 people. And, with a high population growth rate, job seekers are expected to reach 48 million by 2040 with less than 10 million formal jobs expected to be created by then. The situation is going out of hand with 40% unemployment rate. A number of older people occupying the few existing job positions now detest hearing the term 'graduation day.' Except for their children graduating. Graduation is a huge threat as more brainy young stars capable of dislodging these older ones from the family bread winning jobs emerge.

Whilst millions of young professionals sit in homes dying for a miracle of hearing the next bang of email notification saying, ''you have been shortlisted for job interview'', intelligent and focused young people like Annie Nyaga are hanging up their lab coats, deserting those air-conditioned work room for the lucrative freedom-filled side of life made possible through farming. Annie is a Biomedical Scientist by profession from Kenya. The payment in most professional jobs in East Africa are heart-numbing. A professional scientist earns $200, far below monthly earning of illeterate taxi driver in Kampala city.  Ahmisibwe is another story, he is the founder of Sparks Agro Innitiative. He ia a statistician by profession abandoning his Bank job for farming. Not forgetting Malcolm Apunyu of EazeHatch solar incubator abandoning teaching profession for his love for poultry farming to become one of the Uganda's greatest young innovators in poultry industry. This is crazy read right? Well, this is wat we call farming and youth engagement in agriculture in East Africa, endless exciting stories. Imperative. Farming is a full side of life with great adventure and flexible enough to pay you as much as you put in unlike most formal jobs where it takes decades for payment scale to be revised.

Tony's Top 4 Lucrative Crops for Uganda 2019.

Now, there are pros and cons of farming just like in other careers. Drought, low soil fertility, opportunists/middle-men, pests and diseases are some of the bottlenecks for entry level young farmers. It costed me last year when someone I hired his garden started claiming my market-ready melons for being his own sweat. The story was soul-sapping. You need to be prepared to mitigate these bottlenecks. You may need to acquire irrigation system _often very affordable, you also need to link with experienced farmers and consultants to offer additional security. Having class knowledge in agronomy is far from practical farming.
Farming is a great side of life, filled with great freedom and yet sensitive to dedication and hardwork to reward wholesomely.

In simplicity, the peope coming into farming from distant backgrounds like statistics or health have seen the other side of agriculture that most young people including those in rural areas abandoning farming and migrating to urban areas have not seen. These are the very people with true passion and dedication to success in life through agriculture. Working with these epitomes to re-attract the youth into agriculture can be one of the best choices.



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