Troisième édition (2023-2024)

Marlize Grobbelaar
Marlize Grobbelaar is a 25-year-old young farmer from South Africa.
She just finished her BScAgri Animal Science degree at the University of Pretoria. Her family farms avocados in a small town called Tzaneen in the Limpopo region of South Africa. She is currently farming with goats just outside of Pretoria and has a very big passion for breeding exceptional and well-adapted animals She is passionate about the agricultural industry for we as young farmers are keystone people in an ever-growing population.

Zunon Gbotta Linsay Sarah
Zunon Gbotta Linsay Sarah is an Ivorian 34-year-old young fish farmer.
She has a BAC+2 in Finance Accounting and Business Management and she is a member of the National Association of Seed Companies of Ivory Coast.
Linsay Sarah is also President of Fish farmers of Daloa, in charge of women fish farmers and traders in the Haut-Sassandra region.
Moreover, she is the Administrator in charge of gender and social affairs of the National Union of Cooperative Aquaculture societies of Ivory Coast, and the Focal point FAO FISH4ACP project.

Conrad Vanessen
Conrad Vanessen is a 35-year-old farmer, who farms with his wife and children in Southern Alberta, Canada. Since purchasing his farm in 2011, he has expanded his veal operation to 4,500 calves, established a 20,000-layer egg production operation, and also purchased irrigated land to raise his crops. He is an active farm leader, sitting as vice-chair of the Egg Farmers of Alberta, serving on various committees at both the provincial and national levels, while also being actively involved in his local water association focused on the provision of potable water to local communities. Conrad participated in the Egg Farmers of Canada’s National Young Farmer Program, where he built leadership skills, expanded his knowledge, and was recently recognized as one of the Top 4 under 40 in the Canadian poultry industry. He is keen to participate in the Gymnasium program to learn and share with fellow leaders across the world, bringing that knowledge back to his home country and region, to better serve producers at the provincial and national levels.

Ebenezer Abbeyquaye
Ebenezer Abbeyquaye is a young farmer with 10 years plus experience, especially in horticulture managing my own and family farms, growing other young farmers and young entrepreneurs. He is a member of the Coalition of Farmers Ghana(COFAG), having held different positions including being the current president of COFAG.

Kemei Mark Kiprono
Kemei Mark Kiprono is a small-scale youth farmer interested in potato farming. Mark is an active member of Kapkures Youth and Women Self Help Group in Nakuru county, Kenya, a group of youths and women engaging in diverse farming activities. As a member of this group, Mark sensitizes them on best practices in farming, their legal rights, and modern ways to prevent post-harvest losses and value-addition strategies, among others. His interest in agriculture led to his appointment as the agent for a Netherlands-based company specialising in manufacturing agricultural and ambient stores and warehouses, which are used to prevent post-harvest losses, thus enhancing foot security.

Apart from farming, Mark is a practising advocate of the High Court of Kenya with a great interest in land rights, litigation, and advocacy.

Patrick Kuyokwa
Patrick Kuyokwa is the co-founder and CEO of Agricentre, an agricultural enterprise by promoting sustainable agriculture and agribusiness among farmers in northern Malawi. Agricentre is youth-led and works across agronomy, animal health and marketing. Aside from working with farmers, Patrick is a farmer. Currently into the production of crops, legumes, bananas, ginger and cereals while raising chickens and pigs. He believes in agribusiness as a way to improve livelihood in both rural and urban areas.
Patrick holds a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Economics attained from Lilongwe University of Agricultural and Natural Resources (LUANAR) in 2016. As an agricultural economist, he has more than 5 years’ of experience in Agricultural and Natural Resource Management Projects for both the private sector and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).

Cynthia Tewete
Cynthia Tewete is a 32-year-old Community Development Coordinator at NASFAM.
She coordinates all cross-cutting issues at NASFAM national wide. A holder of a Bachelor’s Degree in Agricultural Extension from Bunda College of Agriculture, now known as Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
She has experience in community development programs for over 7 years.
Cynthia is also a farmer with 25 employees. She grows legumes and cereals for one of the seed multiplication companies Seed Co.

Siobhan Wakeling
Siobhan grew up on a small farm in Northland, New Zealand, where her family farmed pigs, Purebred Hereford beef, and reared calves. At sixteen, she started working in the shearing industry (starting during her school holidays as a way to raise funds for her 12-month student exchange to Denmark), where she then spent the next nine years working as a wool handler, wool classer, and shearer throughout New Zealand and Australia. She attended Massey University and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in April of 2022, majoring in Environmental Science. She now works as a GIS Analyst at Federated Farmers of New Zealand, the country’s leading farming organisation for policy and advocacy. She has a passion and enthusiasm for all things mapping and GIS, especially when the use of this technology makes a real difference to farmers around the country.

Dainalyn Swaby
Dainalyn Swaby is a Development Communication Specialist and climate change advocate with over eight years of professional experience in leading internal and external communications and amplifying climate initiatives through research and engagement. In spearheading communication portfolios for climate change projects, she has led integrated efforts promoting climate and agriculture themes among various audiences.
Her partnership with youth-led organizations, government agencies, ministries as well as international organizations has resulted in the execution of numerous outreach projects, capacity-building workshops and conferences promoting climate and agriculture resilience. In her professional and volunteer roles, she has developed and supported several climate-focused youth engagement campaigns and research projects on a local and international level. These include the co-development of a global Youth Engagement Plan through the NDC Partnership Youth Task Force and the coordination of a Climate Change Position paper as a 2021 Global Youth Climate Network Ambassador, through the World Bank’s youth-to-youth initiative.
A 2019 Chevening Scholar, Dainalyn holds an MA. in Global Communication and Development from Loughborough University, London. She currently serves as a member of the institution’s Development and Social Change Advisory Board. Dainalyn is a podcaster and has created several podcasts exclusively focused on culture, climate and sustainable development.

Mawejje Harbert
Mawejje Harbert is a 25-year-old Ugandan Male with a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Land Use and Management from Makerere University. Harbert is an Agronomist and soil scientist by profession.
Harbert is a Project Officer at the Young Farmers Federation of Uganda, a position he has held since 2020. He also owns and operates a soya bean seed multiplication farm in Mityana District in Central Uganda.
He has engaged in national, regional and international platforms such as GIZ Land hub Eshborn 2019 and GIZ land forum digitally in 2020, advocating and representing youth interests.
Harbert is a skilled data scientist who believes data-driven decisions are the way to go for precision agriculture, especially when combating climate change.
He strives to inspire, transform and empower youth in agribusiness, leveraging cooperation, networks and the use of technology.

Silvia Caprara
Born in 1996, Silvia Caprara grew up in her family winery in the countryside of Verona, Italy. In 2020 she obtained the Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano and then decided to come back to work with the family.
At the moment, Silvia is trying many tasks in every sector of the winery: from the vineyard to the office.
Being an only child, she is getting ready to run it as a third generation after her father and grandfather. She belongs to the group ANGA Verona.

RAN Sineat
RAN Sineat was born in 1993 in a rural area of northwest Cambodia. His parents cultivate rice and raise the pig.
So, Ran is very interested in rural development and helping the poor.
He Community Development at Meanchey University and finished his bachelor’s degree in 2015. To strengthen his career, he also attended a master’s degree in general management, which concluded in 2022.
He started working in 2017 as a stock supervisor, and provincial broker in agriculture.
In 2021 he started his collaboration as a value chain and investment officer for the Cambodian Farmers Federation Association of Agricultural Producers (CFAP-Cambodia) under the AIMS project, intending to enhance the prosperity of Cambodian smallholder farmers through increasingly profitable links to agri-businesses and markets, with the intermediate objective to increase returns from farming for smallholders, including poorer farmers and youth, through efficient public sector investment.

Elia Bettelli
Elia is a 28-year-old young Italian farmer.
He has a degree in Marketing and Management and a Master’s in Sustainable Management.
After the University period, he became more and more involved in farming, and so he started a new company with his friend Matteo; now they run together a small organic apple farm in Trentino, North Italy. Since 2022 he is the vice president of AGIA-CIA TRENTINO young farmer association.

Nicolò Bertorello
Nicolò Bertorello is an agronomist, he studied agricultural science at the University of Turin. He comes from Revello (CN) – Italy. After his degree, he worked in a plant nursery in Switzerland in order to make abroad experience and improve his skills in the German language. Now, he is currently employed on his family’s farm. With his relatives and other workers, he grows up several kinds of orchards on 30 hectares circa: many species of berries, cherries, table grapes, apples, chestnuts, kiwi green and gold.
Actually, he is involved in Coldiretti Giovani Impresa committee of Cuneo province. That’s a good chance for him to better know all the agricultural realities of his area.
He likes travelling, but he loves a lot his land. He thinks that is very important to improve agriculture with new technologies and their best application through a scientific-based approach, in order to increase productivity by doing as little damage as possible to the environment.

Evangelista Chekera
Evangelista Chekera is the Founder and Lead Innovator at Passion Poultry (Pvt) Ltd. They work with scale poultry farmers by designing, manufacturing and distributing off-the-grid chick brooding devices and poultry slaughtering devices. She was introduced into the poultry industry by her parents at the age of 10. Currently, she is the provincial Zimbabwe Farmers Union Youth (ZFU) Leader. In 2019 she was granted two patents in the form of utility models by ARIPO for her two poultry equipment innovations.

Louise Crowley
Louise Crowley is a 28-year-old dairy farmer based in Croom, County Limerick in Ireland. She and his father are milking 200 cows in a spring-calving grass-based system. She is the 3rd generation of her family to be involved in the farm. She studied Dairy Herd Management at Salesian Agricultural College, Limerick, and BSc in Agriculture at Cork Institute of Technology.
Louise has been involved in Agricultural Policy and lobbying for several years now.
She is a member of Macra na Feirme and the Irish Farmers Association.
She was the Macra na Feirme representative in the founding of the Women in Agriculture Stakeholders Group in Ireland.
Now, she is the County Secretary for Limerick IFA and farm ambassador for the National Dairy Council, which promotes and advocates for the Irish Dairy Industry and our produce.

Jamie Pepper
Jamie Pepper is a young beef and sheep farmer in southern Australia from the state of Victoria. He helps to operate the family farm with his father and uncle, and they manage Angus and Hereford cow breeding operation, Prime Lamb production, Merino wool production and a Poll Dorset stud.
Jamie sits on the National Farmers’ Federation Young Farmers’ Council to help drive policy change affecting young Australian farmers and is a board member for Food and Fibre Great South Coast which is a representative body for food and fibre production in southwest Victoria.

Katariina Latva
Katariina Latva comes from a small crop farm in Finland, but mainly she is a forest owner with 100 hectares, whose family has farmed around the same fields for hundreds of years.
She graduated as an Agronomist M.Sc. (Agric.) in 2023, with agroecology as her major. Now Katariina is studying forestry while looking for a job and working as an entrepreneur. Her family’s fields were rented to a neighbouring farmer, as her father got severely ill. After his passing, Katariina took the reins and has been educating herself on agriculture and forestry. She is eager to get the voice of young farmers heard and also takes great pride in her young farmer friends who take great pride in their work. Katariina is also a vice chair of our Finnish young farmers’ association.

Leon Ranscht
Leon Ranscht is a 23-year-old young farmer from central Germany. He grew up on a family farm growing rapeseed, wheat, barley and sugar beet. He graduated from the University of Hohenheim in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Science, majoring in Economics and Plant Production. Currently, he is studying for a Master in Agricultural Economics at the Universities of Göttingen and Wageningen. Leon is an active member of “Bund Deutscher Landjugend“ the German rural youth. In his spare time, he enjoys playing the harp and cycling.

Ana Carolina Zimmermann
Ana Carolina Zimmermann is a farmer and produces beef cattle in Goiás.
She is a Production Engineer who graduated from the University of Brasília holding two MBAs in Project Management and Agribusiness, both from the University of São Paulo. Winner of the 4th edition of CNA Jovem, she is a Nuffield Scholar, an Ambassador for NGIN – Next Generation Ag Impact Network and co-founder of BASE – Brasil Agro Society Environment.
Ana Carolina is passionate about studying the integration between rural and urban areas. She received an award from Sebrae in the category of rural producer of Goiás State of the Businesswoman award.