Strategies to Enhance Youths’ Involvement in Agricultural Production Enterprises for Employment and Sustainable Development in Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

This paper determined strategies to enhance youths’ involvement in agricultural production enterprises for employment and sustainable development in Benue State. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. Survey research design was adopted. The study was carried out in Benue State. The population for the study was 1,691,657 made up of 1,691,515 youths and 142 agricultural extension agents. Multistage sampling technique was employed and 40 respondents made up of 258 youths and 142 extension agents were used for the study. All extension agents were used due to its manageable size. Data was collected using a 30 items questionnaire known as Youths’ Involvement in Agricultural Production Enterprise Questionnaire (YIAPEQ). Face validation of the instrument was done by three experts. Cronbach Alpha was used to determine the reliability and a coefficient of 0.82 was obtained. 400 copies of the instrument were distributed to the respondents and 384 copies were retrieved. Mean, standard deviational and t-test statistical tools were employed. The result showed that all the 13 items were factors inhibiting youths’ participation in agricultural production enterprises while all 17 items were accepted as strategies to enhance youths’ participation in agricultural production enterprises. It was recommended that youths should be mentored and encouraged through provision of loans among others. Also, agricultural production should be linked to social media to communicate innovations in agriculture to youths.