How to involve rural NEET youths in agriculture? Highlights of an untold story

Abstract

This article discusses how to involve rural youths not in employment, education, or training (or NEETs) in agriculture. A Portuguese network-based project called Terra Nostra, carried out from 2013 to 2015 to engage and train NEETs in ecoagriculture activities, was examined to address this issue. The study focused on three aspects: a reanalysis of Terra Nostra's final report, based on the bioecological model, targeting typical problems with NEETs' involvement and how the project aimed to overcome them; the lessons learned from the project according to the literature; and the state of the art regarding identical social interventions with NEETs in Portugal and the rest of Europe. A major conclusion stemming from the analysis is that similar projects will need to address the limitations of employment public services in reaching out to rural NEETs and the state's excessive protectionism of the sector.

Professional development perspectives across gender and age groups of under‐qualified rural NEETs

“…First, rural youth deals with professional development barriers, due to a limited offer of training opportunities, as well as a restricted work market in rural areas (De Hoyos & Green, 2011). In turn, the available jobs, most of them in the primary sector, impose a cultural discrepancy on these youths, including rural NEETs, because these activities are not aligned with dominant, urban lifestyle representations (Simões, 2018). However, these youths also display more unsuccessful academic trajectories, meaning that afterwards they will feel pressured to accept less qualified PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL NEETs 6 jobs, including those that underline the countryside lifestyle (Sadler, Akister, & Burch, 2014).…”

“…Besides this, being NEET in the countryside increases the chances of youth mobility toward urban areas, further threatening weak local economies (Farrugia, 2016). Moreover, the higher rates of rural NEETs in many European countries may also indicate a struggle of communities to match local opportunities and resources with youths' professional development expectations (Simões, 2018).…”

Rapid Evidence Assessment Protocol for the the Meta-analysis of Initiatives, Interventions and Programmes that Target Rural NEETs

“…Aside, it is well documented the inability and lack of resources of the local employment services to motivate these youths for the activities in the agriculture sector (Shore and Tosun 2019). These limitations of employment services overlap formal educational systems that overemphasise labor market demands, to the detriment of community opportunities in the agriculture sector, meaning that local resources are not under the radar of potential professional choices promoted by school and training centres (Simões 2018). Moreover, families resist the idea of seeing their children involved in agriculture, experiencing that possibility as a kind of failure in providing them a bright and successful future (Simões 2018).…”

“…These limitations of employment services overlap formal educational systems that overemphasise labor market demands, to the detriment of community opportunities in the agriculture sector, meaning that local resources are not under the radar of potential professional choices promoted by school and training centres (Simões 2018). Moreover, families resist the idea of seeing their children involved in agriculture, experiencing that possibility as a kind of failure in providing them a bright and successful future (Simões 2018). At the individual level, all these barriers lead to the formation of negative stereotypes about the sector among youths as a mainly a male-dominated professional area involving low wages and dirty, undifferentiated work (Simões 2018;Simões and Brito do Rio 2020).…”

“…Moreover, families resist the idea of seeing their children involved in agriculture, experiencing that possibility as a kind of failure in providing them a bright and successful future (Simões 2018). At the individual level, all these barriers lead to the formation of negative stereotypes about the sector among youths as a mainly a male-dominated professional area involving low wages and dirty, undifferentiated work (Simões 2018;Simões and Brito do Rio 2020). However, when having the opportunity to be involved in training and agriculture activities, NEETs acknowledge that these images are oversimpli cations of the real complexity that agriculture activities encompass (Simões and Brito do Rio 2020).…”