Opening Remarks by Misheck Gondo -SAYoF Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, and welcome.
On behalf of the Southern Africa Youth Forum, I thank our partners for bringing us together: the SADC Secretariat, FAO, AGRA and Generation Africa, and the East African Community. We also thank the European Union for supporting the STOSAR II project, which made this work possible. I also recognise our sister partner in the East, the East Africa Youth Network. Your presence shows that food systems do not stop at regional borders, and neither should youth cooperation.
Africa spends between 70 and 100 billion US dollars every year importing food it could grow itself. Our farmers have the land, the labour, and the energy. What most of them lack is scale. A single smallholder farmer cannot negotiate a fair price, meet bulk orders, or access finance on their own. Aggregation changes that. When farmers pool their produce, they gain bargaining power, can meet quality standards, attract investment, and trade across borders.
That is why today matters. We are not here to listen to a presentation. We are here to validate the SADC Guidelines and Regulatory Frameworks for Smallholder Farmer Aggregation and the Rural Agro-Industrial Investment Plans. Today’s decisions will shape how our region organises its value chains for years to come.
For young people, this is personal. Youth make up the majority of our population, and many of us are already running agribusinesses, aggregation hubs, and agri-tech start-ups. We are not only the beneficiaries of these guidelines. We are the people who will implement them. So, I encourage every young participant to speak up. Share the barriers you face in reaching markets, and tell us what policy, financing, and infrastructure you need to grow.
Let us use this session to make sure these guidelines are practical and inclusive, so that women, youth, and smallholder farmers have a real place in regional and continental trade. This meeting is coming after our 8th Forum hosted in South Africa, which focused on food systems, climate resilience, and youth- a timely discussion!
I wish us all a productive and engaging discussion.
Thank you.
