Experts push for targeted agricultural financing for women and youth

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Former agriculture minister and chairperson of the Uganda Agribusiness Alliance, Victoria Sekitoleko, has urged financial institutions to develop financing policies specifically targeting women and youth in agriculture to help lift them out of poverty.

She made the call on May 15, 2025, during a panel discussion on necessary policy shifts to increase women’s participation in the agriculture sector. The discussion was part of the inaugural CropLife symposium held at the Kampala Serena Hotel.

According to Sekitoleko, women traditionally do not own land, an asset often required by financial institutions when issuing loans.

This, she said, has left many women feeling hopeless as they are unable to expand their agricultural productivity due to a lack of financing.

Sekitoleko added that such policy shifts would encourage more women to participate in the implementation of the National Development Plan IV (NDPIV), which identifies agro-industrialisation as a key pathway to lifting women and youth out of poverty.

“Financing should target women so that they can also embrace agro-industrialisation. Women can add value, can market, can do packaging of the different agriculture products, can sell agro inputs which will help them trade their way out of poverty,” she said.

On the same panel, Agnes Mbabazi, chairperson of CropLife Uganda, assured women interested in joining the agriculture space that many opportunities are available, provided they seek the relevant knowledge.

Balam Twinamatsiko, a youthful director at Transform Abafrica Products Limited, called on the government to review some of its policies to meet the growing needs of youth agripreneurs.

He cited the promotion of youth innovations, support in product certification at minimal cost, and the creation of incubation hubs to help young people refine their innovations before launching independently.

To further promote agriculture among youth and women, Evelyn Musyoka, Smallholder Strategy Lead for Africa at Bayer Crop Science, called for increased mechanisation to help smallholder farmers, particularly women and youth, grow more food.

She noted that with a growing population, land available for agriculture is shrinking, necessitating more intensive farming supported by machinery.

“As the population grows, we are going to have smaller pieces of land. It’s a question of how do we continue and produce more with fewer resources. That means we need more mechanisation along the value chain but also put in place relevant infrastructure like storage facilities, so as to reduce some imports of food items,” she said.

Musyoka further explained that failure to adapt will result in Africa continuing as a net importer of food, despite its growing population. Africa’s current population stands at 1.2 billion and is projected to double by 2050.

Of this, 52% are women, and 70% of that group are youth.

“This means women and youth will continue to produce food along the entire agriculture chain, hence the need to make it attractive to stir up youth entrepreneurship, but also encourage women to produce more,” she said.

She was responding to a question on how youth and women can be supported to contribute more significantly to agriculture, during a panel session offering an overview of Women and Youth Shaping Agriculture in the Agrochemical and Fertiliser Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa.