Female farmer urges SVG youth to embrace farming

APPROXIMATELY 28 of the 43 interns who took part in the 2025Youth Agricultural Summer Internship Programme (YASIP) are hoping to pursue a career in agriculture.

In 2023, the Zero Hunger Trust Fund (ZHTF) launchedYASIP with the aim of providing the most recent secondary school and college graduates with the opportunity to engage in hands-on training in sustainable agriculture. The internship programme also aims to empower youths and promote innovation within the agricultural sector.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of the 2025 YASIP at the National Insurance Services (NIS) conference room on Tuesday, August 26, 2025, Chief Executive Officer of the ZHTF, Safiya Horne-Bique, saidYASIP 2025 began on July, 10, and placed interns between the ages of 16 and 24 years with 18 host partners across St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), including for the first time, in Union Island.

Interns gained valuable hands-on experience in integrated farm management, greenhouse and shade-house techniques, water harvesting, solar technology, agribusiness, animal husbandry, and policy and strategy development, among other areas.

Horne-Bique noted that the cohort of 43 interns who successfully completed this year’s six-week programme is the largest to date.

As a measurement of the programme’s impact she noted that 65% of interns expressed a serious interest in pursuing a career in agriculture, while there was as satisfaction rate of 85% reported among interns and host partners.

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