The Netherlands has urged Ghana to put young people at the centre of agricultural transformation by improving access to skills, finance and markets.

Ms Wendy van Meel, Deputy Ambassador of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ghana, said youth participation was essential to building sustainable value chains, creating decent jobs and strengthening food security.

“Supporting young people is not a separate activity within agricultural development. It’s central to it,” she said at an event organised by the Netherlands Embassy in Accra to commemorate the 2026 International Youth Day (IYD), on the theme: “Different Contexts, Common Aspirations.”

“The challenge is not a lack of ideas or ambition among young people, but whether the ecosystem around them provides the support they need to turn those brilliant ideas into sustainable businesses,” she added.

The event brought together young leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, financial institutions and policymakers to discuss opportunities for youth participation in agribusiness and other growth sectors.

Ms van Meel said Ghana and the Netherlands had strengthened cooperation in trade, investment and market development, with agriculture, particularly cocoa and horticulture, remaining a key area of collaboration.

She identified limited technical and entrepreneurial skills, fragmented interventions, weak enabling systems and inadequate access to finance as major constraints to the growth of Ghana’s horticulture sector.

Ms van Meel said the Netherlands had supported initiatives including the ACHI programme, which had trained more than 1,200 young professionals and 60 lead farmers, and the Horticulture Business Challenge, which enabled young entrepreneurs to develop solutions to industry challenges.

She said the Embassy, in collaboration with the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, had also commissioned an Access to Finance Roadmap for Ghana’s horticulture sector to identify financing gaps and practical interventions.

On cocoa, Ms van Meel said an ageing farmer population and limited interest among young people posed challenges to the sector’s future.

She cited a planned media programme to promote cocoa among young people, the Cocoa Innovations Hackathon at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), and the Cocoa Hub project, which supported young rural service-centre owners to professionalise their businesses and access partnerships and finance.

Ms van Meel urged stakeholders to build an enabling environment that allowed young Ghanaians to lead innovation, create jobs and drive sustainable growth across the agricultural sector.

Mr John Setor Dumelo, Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, said the Ministry had introduced interventions to support young people entering agriculture, including the provision of fertilisers, seeds, agro-inputs and technical advice.

He, however, urged prospective beneficiaries to demonstrate commitment by starting their ventures before seeking government support.

“We need to see evidence that indeed you’ve started. And then we can definitely come in to help you a little bit,” he said.

Mr Dumelo said the Ministry was promoting all-year-round farming to increase production and create reliable markets, while collaborating with private-sector players to purchase and process surplus maize, rice and other cereals.

He encouraged young people to explore the entire agribusiness value chain, saying opportunities extended beyond crop production.

“It’s not everybody that can be a farmer but almost everybody can be in the agribusiness space,” he said.

Dr Rens Twijnstra, Head of the Economic Department of the Netherlands Embassy, said Ghana’s growing youth population, increasing urbanisation and ageing farming population made youth participation in agriculture a policy priority.

He said meaningful youth participation required policymakers to listen to young people and understand their aspirations as technology continued to transform employment opportunities.

“If youth cannot be meaningfully engaged in the agricultural value chains, then there’s going to be a huge disconnect,” he said.

Dr Twijnstra said access to finance remained a major challenge requiring joint action to enable young people with viable ideas and ambitions to establish and grow businesses.

He said the Netherlands saw opportunities for collaboration with Ghana in cocoa, horticulture and other agricultural sectors and would continue supporting initiatives that enabled young people to contribute to their development.

International Youth Day is observed annually on August 12 to celebrate young people’s contributions to society and raise awareness of challenges affecting youth.

The United Nations established the observance in 1999.