The impact of behavioral attributes on rural youth’s propensity to participate in non-primary agribusinesses : evidence from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

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.