Paper short abstract:

Educated youth are engaging in agriculture despite the prevailing negative youth and agricultural narratives. The 'New Achikumbe Elite' in Malawi are interacting and exploiting their capital assets as a means of navigating pathways and own identities as they pursue agrarian livelihoods.

Paper long abstract:

Education, particularly, high levels of education often present as exit points in the discussion of youth, agriculture and un(der)employment. The agricultural narrative; young people are not interested in agriculture comes along with discussions that as young people attain higher levels of education, they opt for non-agrarian livelihoods. As a result, agriculture engagement is associated, when it comes to younger generation, with low to no levels of education. The implications is that the current advocacy for attaining high literacy levels and implementing educational policies that advance free primary and secondary education in countries such as Malawi, implies education continues to displace agriculture in discussions and debates of youth and un(der)employment. Using my field work data of 2018, I explore an emerging group of young people who despite having higher levels of education are engaging in agriculture ’new achikumbe elite’ who are the new and upcoming young and educated in some cases employed youth who are entering agriculture as a means of supporting their livelihood. I use 12 case studies to explore their entry and experiences with agriculture in Malawi. I argue that, although still in its infancy, the 'new achikumbe elite' could potentially be the emergence of a new class of young agrarian capitalist in Malawi. They, unlike being subsistence farmers, are commercially oriented and are buying land instead of relying on inherited land for access while leveraging the benefits of higher levels of education to access other capital assets such as agricultural investment funds and skills.