Abstract:
Youth participation in agriculture in general and agribusinesses in
particular remains limited in Africa and empirical insight on the
enablers and inhibitors is limited. This paper aims to investigate
the impact of behavioral attributes (such as entrepreneurial spirit
and business skills endowment) on the potential participation of
rural youth in non-primary agribusinesses. Principal Component
Analysis and Fractional Logit Model were employed on a data set
of 152 rural youth. The results show that most rural youth are
endowed with entrepreneurial spirit and relatively well capacitated
with business skills. The results further show that rural youth
endowed with entrepreneurial spirit are less likely to engage in
non-primary agribusinesses. Other factors that influence rural
youth potential participation included psychological capital, agricultural
perceptions, and demographics. The results suggest that
interventional programs should consider behavioral attributes
when aiming to attract rural youth into the sector.
