Abstract:
Agribusiness remains fundamental to poverty reduction in this century by employing large number
of population throughout the world. Even though agribusiness plays great role in employing
people, youth are getting challenged by many problems while engaging in agribusiness. Insufficient
access to education, low agricultural productivity, seasonality of agricultural incomes, limited
access to land, inadequate access to financial services, and climate change are some of the
challenges for youth involvement and advancement in agriculture and other related business. This
study has addressed three specific objectives: role of micro and small agribusiness in employment
creation for youth, types of micro and small agribusiness in which youth are engaging, and
factors affecting youth participation in micro and small agribusiness. The data was collected from
both primary and secondary sources. The primary data for this study was collected from
purposively selected 155 youth through application of structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed
by descriptive analysis and logit model. It was found that about 62.6% of respondent youth were
participating in crop production, cattle production, cattle fattening, cattle trading, dairy
production, wood work and others. The result of the logistic regression model indicated that youth
participation in micro and small agribusiness is significantly affected by land availability, access to
extension contact, access to credit, and career ambition of youth. From the regression result it was
found that extension contact, land availability and credit access were found significantly and
positively affecting youth participation whereas career ambition found negatively and significantly
found in affecting youth participation in micro and small agribusiness. Therefore, providing
improved credit system, equally distributing available land and aiding youth to conserve soil,
improving extension system through providing incentives to participants and creating more
awareness in changing way youth think about agriculture are recommended to accelerate their
participation in micro and small agribusiness.
