YPARD

Yound Professionals for Agricultural Development

Visit YPARD Website

Young Professionals for Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD):

YPARD is a non-profit organization by Young Professionals for Young Professionals for Agricultural Development.

Our vision & mission:

YPARD’s core aim is to enable young professionals to sustainably transform the agri-food systems.

Vision: A food secure world without poverty where young people are enabled to fully contribute.

Mission: Enabled and empowered young agricultural leaders shaping sustainable agri-food systems.

 

Activities:

We promote capacity building for our members to support their projects and ideas through:

    • Training programs to guide young professionals in developing their innovative ideas about transforming our agri-food systems.
    • Webinars and events promoting theories, best practices, success stories, experiences, and discussions.
    • Mentorship in the form of knowledge-sharing, capacity building, and inter-generational exchange.

We advocate for a food system that is just and allows for the full participation of youth through:

    • Publication of position papers and official statements written in collaboration with members and other youth networks.
    • Public speaking at local events, national and regional seminars, and international platforms.
    • Policy working groups that guide young professionals interested in advocacy work and policy processes.

We foster connections and collaborations on the local, regional, national, and international levels through:

    • Partnerships with different youth organizations, educational institutions, development sector bodies, and more.
    • Workshops and events at the community level, in national and regional activities, and in international advocacy and negotiating spaces.

In the CEA-FIRST, YPARD contributes to Work packages 1 and 6. These have to do with the development of the CEA-FIRST and IRC Gender and Youth Strategies as well as setting up the IRC Working Group on Gender and Youth.

People

Genna Tesdall is the Director of the network Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD). She is an agriculture systems thinker taking on projects to sustain the environment and people, striving to be a servant-leader in order to foster equality between generations (and all delimiters of privilege). Before joining YPARD, she was the federal agricultural policy officer at the German Rural Youth Association (Bund der Deutschen Landjugend) (2020). As a Fulbright Researcher at the Humboldt University of Berlin (2018-19), she focused on youth involvement in agricultural policy, and is a former president (2013-14) of the International Association of Agriculture and Related Sciences Students (IAAS). She is a graduate of the global oriented Iowa State (2015) and Penn State Universities (2018) with a M.Sc. in Plant Pathology and International Agriculture and Development.

Kofi Acquaye is the Africa Regional Coordinator for YPARD. His work with YPARD and the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) – YPARD’s institutional host in Africa, is to strengthen youth engagement and build the next generation of agricultural development experts. His previous experience includes training and managing farmer-based organizations with Ghana’s Ministry of Agriculture.

Kofi holds a Master’s Degree in Development Communication from the Ghana Institute of Journalism and a Bachelor’s Degree in Post-Harvest Technology from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).