In September 2025, 3 YPARD Zambia members participated in a transformative four-day training under the FACE-NDC Project, aimed at equipping young professionals with practical skills in tree nursery establishment and community forestry management.

Held in Lusaka, the workshop was facilitated by Vincent Ziba from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), with contributions from Arthur Parry of Just One Tree Foundation.

At the third 2025 #Youth4Soil Solutions Showcase, held virtually on September 25, young people from around the world presented ground breaking initiatives that exemplify how young people, rooted in their communities and connected to the land, are cultivating fresh, innovative solutions to restore soil health.  Reiterating that just like plants need healthy soil to grow, a sustainable future needs youth-led ideas to flourish. Youth and soil together form the bedrock of regeneration, resilience and renewal.

On August 28th, 2025, youth organizations and cooperatives from across Lusaka gathered at Protea Hotel Lusaka Tower for a transformative workshop under the theme “Strengthening Youth Voices in Agri-Food Systems Governance.”

Organized by FAO Zambia and ICLEI Africa, with active participation from YPARD Zambia, the session marked a pivotal moment in building youth capacity to influence food systems governance.

This wasn’t just another training—it was a shift in mindset. Following a series of engagements in agri-food systems governance dialogues and consultations that exposed a gap in youth capacity to effectively engage decision-makers, young leaders came together to move from “What is advocacy?” to “How do we make our advocacy more targeted, meaningful, and influential?”

On 28th and 29th May, 2025, Youth including Young professionals from the YPARD Zambia Chapter joined industry leaders, policymakers, and agripreneurs for a two-day workshop under the theme "Promoting Youth Entrepreneurship Across Agrifood Systems." Convened by Hydrangea, WEAC, ICLEI, and the FAO, the event focused on unlocking opportunities, improving market access, and driving sustainable innovation in Zambia’s agrifood sector.

The Coalition of Action for Soil Health (CA4SH) #Youth4Soil Working Group held its inaugural Virtual Soil Solutions showcase on Thursday, 6th March 2025. The event was dubbed “We Grow We Eat” to celebrate soil as a growing medium for 95% of the world's food. The showcase provided a platform for #Youth4Soil members to exhibit the soil health solutions they are already implementing in their local contexts and interact with key stakeholders to grow those solutions.

On 5th December 2024, World Soil Day, YPARD Zambia hosted a YPARD Café dubbed "Youth Led Interventions for Soil Health and Climate Resilience". The event, which took place through an online platform, was meant to Convene a diverse group of young leaders to discuss youth led soil health interventions for climate resilience explore diverse opportunities available for youth to make impact in the soil health sector and foster youth engagement to elevate soil health interventions for climate resilience in national dialogues.

The Stars in Our Soil is a 6-part series highlighting the scientific and social elements of the soil that are synonymous to the stars; each of them unique but when they are together, they light up the universe. 

In this article, Sussana Terieza Phiri (#Youth4Soil, YPARD Zambia, CA4SH Intern) explores the physical properties of soil, and some of the implications for agricultural growers.