‘Farming is Cool’ competition: AfDB launches art contest for school children

African Development Bank (AfDB) has launched the Junior Art Contest in Nigeria to promote the potential of agriculture to secondary school children as part of its ‘Farming is Cool’ initiative.


The aim is to engender a generational shift in agriculture on the continent and ensure that Africa is able to feed itself and eradicate malnutrition by 2025.

Mr. Akinwumi Adesina, President of AfDB, will present prizes to the three winners from the month-long contest at the commissioning of the Nigeria office building. The winners will receive partial scholarships of one million Naira, half a million Naira and N250,000 as first, second and third place prizes, respectively.

“The art competition was conducted to sow a seed of awareness in young minds of the significance and potential of agriculture in the development of a nation’s economy. The Farming is Cool campaign strives to flip the script on farming as a last resort by emphasizing and promoting it as a viable wealth-creation option,” said Ebrima Faal, Senior Director of the Nigeria Country Department at the African Development Bank.

“It targets youth and children to encourage positive thought and action towards an agricultural revolution.”

The Bank is accelerating agricultural development through its Feed Africa Strategy with planned investment of $24 billion over the next 10 years.

The goals of the Bank’s Feed Africa strategy are to help eliminate extreme poverty in Africa by 2025; end hunger and malnutrition in Africa by 2025; make Africa a net food exporter; and move Africa to the top of export-orientated global value chains where it has comparative advantage.

Feed Africa includes agricultural finance models that will benefit youth, as well as other groups; it will rely on the Jobs for Youth in Africa Strategy to increase the representation of youth in agriculture and agribusiness and equip them with the necessary skills to be successful.



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