In general, the Ministry of Agriculture stated that the number of farmers in Indonesia currently reaches 33.4 million people. However, the majority of farmers are dominated by the older generation who are not touched by technology. Of the 33.4 million farmers, around 30.4 million people or 91 percent are older generation farmers whose ages are approaching 50 to 60 years. Meanwhile, only 9 percent or 2.7 million people are farmers who fall into the category of the younger generation between the ages of 19-39 years.

More specifically in organic farming, most of the farmers are elderly, so it is difficult to innovate organic farming systems. Concrete efforts are needed to create and encourage young people to engage in organic farming.

IOA encourages organic young farmers by establishing a special training program for young people, namely the Young Organic Farmers Forum. In collaboration with IFOAM Asia, IOA has organized the Organic Youth Forum 2021 in November 2021 on a hybrid event. This forum brings together young farmers, farmer assistants, young academics to become the next actor in developing sustainable organic agriculture.

It doesn’t stop there, this forum continues to be developed by creating a series of follow-up activities that involve young people to continue to actively speak out and spread the spirit of organic farming to the community through social media platforms.