A continental agribusiness competition is seeking to reward youth with ideas on how to improve productivity of certain crops, and is seen as a way of enticing youth to a sector capable of bridging the yawning gap between the employed and unemployed.

The Africa Agribusiness Competition is targeting youth between 18-30 years from Sub Saharan Africa to come up with creative business ideas which will be judged by leading academicians in the continent.

Interested participants will submit their applications through an online platform www.agribizafrica.com.  The best 25 contestants will each receive a $1,000 (Sh89,500) grant to test the viability of their idea.

The best three among them will then be selected by a recognised panel of agribusiness leaders and invited to attend the AGRF Forum on African agriculture to be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in early September, where they will have a chance to mingle with some of Africa’s most influential thought leaders and receive due recognition for their ideas.

A special category ‘The Agriculture Video Messaging Competition’ targets youth with interest in creative arts and is meant to encourage the youth in this bracket to tell the agricultural story in their own prism.
Deadline for submission is 10th June 2012.

The competition is organized by Enactus Kenya and Syngenta. “It is a great honour for us at Enactus Kenya to play a key role in positioning African youth as champions in offering agribusiness solutions for Africa through this competition,” said Mr James Shikwati, Enactus Kenya’s country director in an earlier interview.