Across Rwanda, agriculture remains a major source of work. But for many young people, farming still means small plots, uncertain income, and seasonal work. A new youth program bets that the answer isn’t to pull young people away from agriculture, but to change what agriculture can offer them.
For years, the conversation around young people and agriculture in Rwanda has always been central, as agriculture is everywhere; it feeds the country, employs millions and remains critical to Rwanda’s economic plans. Yet for many young people, farming is not necessarily the first career they would choose. The problem is not simply whether young people are willing to farm. It is whether farming can provide the kind of income, independence, and prospects they expect from a career. That question is becoming increasingly important.
Rwanda’s 2024 Agricultural Household Survey estimates that 2.2 million households — 65.3% of all households — were agricultural households. Yet young people aged 16–30 represented only 30.7% of the adults engaged in agricultural activities. At the same time, the nature of agricultural work is changing. In 2024, 51.4% of young agricultural workers were in market-oriented agriculture, compared with 48.6% in subsistence agriculture. The shift is still incomplete. But it points towards a possibility: agriculture may be becoming less about simply producing enough to eat and more about producing something that can be sold. That is where one five-year experiment in Rwanda is worth watching.
A $20 million bet on young farmers
In early 2025, the Youth Entrepreneurship in Agriculture Rwanda program — known as YEA-R — is working with young people in Rwanda, focusing particularly on two value chains: horticulture and poultry. The program is supported by the Mastercard Foundation and led by SNV through a consortium of partners. Its stated ambition is substantial: to create 40,000 dignified and fulfilling work opportunities for young people in Rwanda’s agri-food sector by 2029. The program is deliberately aimed at groups that have often faced greater barriers to economic opportunities. Its target is predominantly young women, alongside young people with disabilities. But numbers alone tell us very little about whether such a program is working. So, when we grew interested in the YEA-R program, we looked beyond the headline figures. The more interesting question was: What are young people actually doing with the opportunities they are being given? The answer emerging from the reports is encouraging — although far from conclusive.
The first change: young people are learning to save
The program started by bringing young people together into farming groups and providing training in life skills, agricultural production, business and financial management. By the end of the first quarter of 2026, 400 new youth groups had been formed, bringing 12,000 young people into the program. About 92.9% were young women, while 7.81% were people with disabilities. But the program’s first important financial test was not how much outside funding the groups received. It was how much they could save themselves. In the first quarter, participating groups reported RWF 46.9 million in savings and RWF 17.2 million in sales. By the second quarter, reported savings had reached RWF 130.9 million across 484 youth groups. Some groups had begun lending money internally to members to finance income-generating activities. While that may sound like a modest achievement against the scale of Rwanda’s agricultural economy, it isn’t, as for a young farmer with limited access to formal finance, having a group that can generate its own working capital changes the equation. Instead of waiting for the next loan, grant or project input, the group can potentially borrow from itself. That is exactly what makes the story of one group in Muhanga interesting.
In Muhanga, 30 young people are trying to build a business
Before joining YEA-R, members of Ejo Heza Bwirika Youth Group farmed individually, mainly for subsistence. They had limited knowledge of improved farming methods and little access to savings or financial services. The group, which is composed of 30 members: 25 young women and five young men, including 3 people with disabilities, with support from the program, the members began working collectively, established a vegetable demonstration plot, and expanded their production from 10 ares to half a hectare. They began growing sweet peppers in response to market demand. Then came something arguably more important. The group accumulated RWF 975,400 in savings, which they added to their sales revenue and began using that money to cover practical business costs such as land rental, irrigation, and greenhouse operations. The group has since taken over a greenhouse and says it wants to expand production to one hectare using its own savings. That ambition is worth watching. Because the real test of an agricultural program is not whether a farmer can produce when someone else is paying for the inputs; it is whether the farmer can continue when the support becomes less direct.
From chickens to cash
Poultry is providing another test. In the second quarter, 39 poultry pens supported through the program were stocked with a total of 11,700 laying chickens. The groups reported RWF 38 million in sales during the quarter, split between poultry and horticulture. The poultry birds began producing eggs quickly enough to generate RWF 24.75 million in sales in June alone, according to the detailed program report. But again, the most revealing evidence is not the amount of money generated; it is who is making the decisions. In Rutsiro, a youth poultry group began buying its own feed from January this year. The members also used their savings to install electricity in their poultry house after recognizing that lighting could improve egg production. When the group later hosted members of the Senate, the young farmers explained how they had progressed, what they wanted to achieve next — and what was still holding them back. They specifically raised the high cost of poultry feed. This is a small but telling moment.
Perhaps the biggest test is what happens when nobody is watching
There is one finding in the program’s second-quarter report that deserves more attention. Some participants have begun investing in agriculture using their own money and their own decisions, outside activities directly financed by the program. In Karongi, three youth groups started passing chickens from one member to another:
Gisayo Group: 60 chickens to 30 participants.
Nyakariba Group: 72 chickens to 24 participants.
Gitonde Group: 44 chickens to 22 participants.
And beyond these group schemes, 78 young people bought chickens using their own money. In Burera, three groups began using their savings to invest in sheep. Twenty members had received sheep worth about RWF 75,000 each, while another 46 participants independently started poultry businesses. In Musanze, 17 young people independently established poultry enterprises after gaining technical knowledge and practical experience through the program. This is where the story becomes bigger than a program: if a young person takes knowledge from a training session and uses it to start a business with their own money, the program has done more than deliver training; it has potentially changed behavior.
But there is a problem: producing is easier than selling
It would be easy to turn these figures into a success story. The evidence does not yet justify that. The program’s own market research found strong demand for poultry and several horticultural products, particularly from urban centers, schools and the hospitality industry. But it also found persistent obstacles: production remains fragmented, supply is inconsistent, aggregation is limited, and prices fluctuate by season. Young producers also lack the volume and coordination needed to take full advantage of regional and cross-border markets. This is perhaps the most important lesson emerging so far.
Teaching young people to farm better is only half the job.
A farmer can grow excellent vegetables and still struggle to make money if there is no reliable buyer.
A poultry farmer can increase egg production and still see profits squeezed if feed prices rise. A young entrepreneur can have the right idea and still struggle if they cannot access affordable finance. That is why the program is also trying to connect young farmers with buyers and financial institutions. In Muhanga, for example, seven youth groups entered into agreements with Green Land Horticulture Ltd after organizing their production around market requirements. The challenge now is whether such connections can move from a handful of promising examples to something that works on a scale.
And what about young women and youth with disabilities?
For young women, participation is only the starting point. Of the 12,000 young people brought into the program in early 2026, 92.9% were young women. That focus is deliberate. Women already do much of the work in Rwanda’s agricultural economy, but participation in farming does not necessarily mean control over income, assets or decisions. YEA-R is therefore working beyond technical farming skills, supporting young people to build confidence, leadership and a greater voice in decisions affecting their groups and businesses. By the second quarter, 1,478 young people had been reached through a training-of-trainers approach, with trained participants cascading learning on confidence, leadership and decision-making to other members of their groups. Field monitoring also found examples of youth groups independently making production decisions, enforcing their own rules and managing collective activities. Whether this translates into lasting changes in women’s control over income and decision-making will require longer-term evidence. For now, the program is at least attempting to address some of the structural barriers that can limit the benefits young women derive from agricultural work.
For young people with disabilities, inclusion requires more than putting them on a participant list. The program first conducts disability needs assessments to understand the type of disability and determine what support each participant may require to take part meaningfully. Support can then include assistive devices such as wheelchairs and white canes, access to medication, and referrals or facilitation to access health facilities where needed. The program also seeks to avoid isolating young people with disabilities by incorporating them into larger youth groups, rather than creating separate groups solely for people with disabilities. This is intended to strengthen participation, peer relationships and a sense of belonging within the wider agricultural community. In the first quarter, 937 young people with disabilities were reached, while by the second quarter the program reported that 807 had received training on disability equity, inclusion and accessibility. These interventions suggest that inclusion is being treated as a practical question of what support people need to participate, rather than simply a question of how many people with disabilities are enrolled. Whether that support ultimately enables sustained participation and improved livelihoods will, again, require longer-term evidence.
The greenhouse experiment shows why agriculture is not simple
The program has also invested in two greenhouses, in Muhanga and Burera. On paper, a greenhouse sounds like a straightforward productivity solution: controlling the growing environment, producing higher-value crops and creating better economic opportunities. Reality has been less tidy. In Burera, production was progressing well. In Muhanga, the first tomato crop faced water shortages and pest and disease problems. The program decided to harvest the crops and then switch to sweet peppers grown in substrate bags to reduce soil-related disease and improve water management. That experience is important because it challenges the idea that technology automatically solves agricultural problems; it doesn’t. A greenhouse still needs reliable water; it still needs skilled management; it still needs a market, and it still needs farmers capable of responding when something goes wrong. The young farmers’ ability to adapt may ultimately matter more than the structure itself.
So, can agriculture become a career for Rwanda’s young people?
The answer, at least for now, is possibly — but the evidence is still being built. Rwanda cannot afford to treat agriculture simply as an occupation that young people inherit because they have no alternative. The sector remains economically important. The Ministry of Agriculture’s latest strategic plan says close to 69% of households are engaged in agriculture and describes the sector as central to employment, economic growth and poverty reduction. At the same time, the labor market is changing. NISR’s 2025 Labor Force Survey shows that 47.1% of young people aged 16–30 were employed in 2025, while 24.5% were neither in employment nor in education or training. The question, therefore, is not whether Rwanda needs young people in agriculture. It is what kind of agriculture young people are being asked to enter. An agricultural sector built around small plots, low productivity, unpredictable prices and limited access to capital will struggle to compete with the aspirations of a young population. But agriculture that offers opportunities to run businesses, supply reliable markets, work with technology, process food, provide services and earn income across the wider food system looks very different.
That is the bet behind YEA-R.
