What do smallholder farmers need to adapt to climate change? That was the question posed to the Youth Agri Champions as they went about developing a set of demands on what can be done to improve support for climate adaptation in the agricultural sector. Taking place two weeks after the first workshop, the second workshop gave the Youth Agri Champions a chance to consolidate their ideas and demands. In between the first and the second workshop, the Youth Agri Champions continued to work virtually in their working groups, social risk management, funding/finance, and training/capacity building, where they built upon the ideas that came up in Workshop 1.

In Workshop 2, our expert guest, Denis Kabiito, the CEO and Founder of the Young Farmers’ Federation of Uganda, shared his knowledge and experience with the participants. He touched upon the challenges facing women farmers and encouraged smallholder farmers and the agripreneurs supporting them to overcome the obstacles posed by climate change and various other factors. Along these lines, Kabiito urged the Youth Agri Champions to, “start small, [and] start from somewhere from where we can convince those around us to support us.”  

After the participants posed their own questions to Kabiito, the Youth Agri Champions reconvened in their three working groups. Once again, they engaged in lively discussions and worked on further substantiating their demands. At the end of the workshop, representatives from each group presented their demands for the topic area they were working on.

The social risk management group focused on insurance schemes and providing more information and help to smallholder farmers to reduce uncertainty. The focus in the funding/finance group was on responsive funding and ensuring that funding schemes are contextualized to suit smallholder farmers. The Youth Agri Champions in the training/capacity building group developed a demand focusing on the ease of access to training, strengthening female access to training, and the adaptation of trainings and resources to reflect local social, economic, cultural, and environmental circumstances.  

Over the coming week, the demands will be consolidated. The Youth Agri Champions will then present these final demands at the next workshop where the best-practice projects from the participants will also be announced. At the final workshop on the 25th of August 2022, the Ban Ki-moon Centre Co-Chairs, Ban Ki-moon and Heinz Fischer will join them to bring the webinar series to a close and accept the demand paper to help amplify the voice of smallholder farmers and agripreneurs in Ban Ki-moon’s and the BKMC’s advocacy work to call on global leaders to take action on adaptation in smallholder agriculture.