Factors affecting youth participation in micro and small agribusiness: the case of kuyyu district, north shewa zone of oromia regional state, Ethiopia

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.