In rural South Africa, youth unemployment is a crisis. Thousands of young people are locked out of opportunities across provinces such as the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, and Limpopo, with limited income and pathways to social mobility. In response, agriculture is often promoted as a solution — a means to generate livelihoods, address household food insecurity and foster community resilience. But as organisations working on the ground, we’ve learnt a hard lesson: you can’t grow anything in depleted soil. And for many young people, that depleted soil is their emotional and mental state.
At Siyavuna Abalimi Development Centre, we’ve spent years supporting youth-led farming projects. We’ve found that the most significant barriers to success aren’t always technical skills, land access, or even funding. Often, the barrier is mental health: unresolved trauma, undiagnosed depression, or the weight of daily survival. They are symptoms of chronic poverty, high unemployment, violence, and the lingering impact of climate-related disasters.
A recent study from the rural Harry Gwala District in KwaZulu-Natal found that nearly one in four young people reported suicidal thoughts— on par with national figures. But in rural areas, help is harder to come by due to scarce mental health services, staff shortages, high travel costs, stigma and limited links between traditional and formal care. Although it covers much ground, government’s National Mental Health Policy Framework and Strategic Plan doesn’t adequately cover the difficulties that rural areas face in mental healthcare provision.
When young people show up to farming programmes — or worse, don’t show up at all — it’s not because they don’t care. It’s because they’re fighting battles that agricultural training alone can’t fix.
Some participants would disengage mid-way through training. Others lacked the confidence to sell their produce, pitch ideas, or take small entrepreneurial risks. Many came to our staff with deeply personal concerns — not about farming, but about abuse at home, substance misuse in the family, or how to apply for a social grant.
At first, we tried referring them to external services. But in most rural areas, those services are either overstretched or don’t exist. Our team began absorbing emotional burdens they weren’t equipped for, and the lines between support and burnout became dangerously thin.
We realised we had to go deeper if we were serious about youth development. That meant rethinking our programmes — not replacing agricultural training but embedding mental health and life skills into its core.
Integrating mental wellbeing into youth farming programmes
We introduced resilience-building workshops that helped participants develop emotional strength and manage stress, particularly around failure and uncertainty. We created structured spaces for peer-to-peer support, where young people could share experiences and know they weren’t alone. Basic tools were introduced to help participants manage personal crises without derailing their progress. We also helped them identify what support systems, however limited, existed within their communities.
Recognising the emotional toll on our staff, we partnered with an organisation called Taking Care of Business to provide training on trauma awareness, boundary-setting, and personal wellbeing. These changes required us to reallocate time and resources — and to explain to donors why conversations about stress, grief, or identity had become part of a farming programme.
The impact was immediate. Participation became more consistent. Young people showed up more engaged and confident. The farming didn’t suffer — it improved.
What we’ve learnt is that mental health isn’t a soft issue or a distraction from development work — it’s an enabler. As roads, tools, and water access make farming possible, so do emotional stability, hope, and human connection. Without these, even the best-designed programmes struggle.
Our shift is backed by growing evidence from across Southern Africa. Studies show that programmes are more effective when young people are not treated merely as beneficiaries, but as active collaborators in shaping interventions. Mental health support does not need to look like therapy to make an impact. Life skills sessions, storytelling circles, and peer-led conversations often reduce stigma and strengthen resilience in practical, familiar ways. And the most successful approaches are those that work at multiple levels — reaching not just individuals, but also their peers, families, and communities.
Creating an enabling policy environment
Mental wellbeing can be nurtured through everyday tools, integrated seamlessly into development work.
This shift has implications for those who fund, design, or evaluate youth programmes, which should be designed with people’s emotional realities in mind. These programmes must be supported by an enabling national policy framework that integrates mental health into primary healthcare, especially in rural areas.
Expanding community-based support and training health workers to recognise emotional distress are essential. Teams working with young people must be supported to recognise early warning signs of emotional distress and to maintain healthy boundaries to avoid burnout. Mental wellbeing must be included in broader development plans, supported by improved data collection and public awareness campaigns to reduce stigma. Success should not be measured solely by yields or income but also by improvements in confidence, coping, and connection. And development organisations do not need to do this alone — strategic partnerships with mental health experts can provide support and build capacity where it’s most needed. Coordination across sectors and sustainable funding are also critical to address the root causes and ensure equitable mental health services nationwide.
Mental wellbeing isn’t a detour from economic development. It is the pathway to it. Let’s build programmes and policies that treat mental wellbeing not as an add-on, but as essential groundwork.
Oxolo Mofokeng is the executive director of Siyavuna Abalimi Development Centre NPC. Sibongiseni Peacock is an Innovation Manager at the DG Murray Trust (DGMT).
The City Press originally published this op-ed on 26 August 2025.
