Abstract:
This study was carried out to assess the level of youth involvement in Agriculture in Jalingo,
Taraba State, Nigeria. Both purposive and multi-stage random sampling techniques were adopted
for selection of one hundred and twentyone (121) respondents in the study area. Primary data
were collected using structures questionnaires and interview techniques administered on the
respondents were analyzed using descriptive statistics and oneway analysis of variance
(ANOVA) using GraphPad 5.0 software and means were separated using Turkey Multiple
Comparison Test. Result indicated that 66.1% were males and 33.9% were females in the study
area. The result also showed that 62.8% were single while 29.8 % were married. Majority of the
youth (87.6 %) were involved in arable crop production while 77.7% were involved in farm
labor and 55.5% were involved in cash crop production. The result suggested that most of the
youth were involved in crop production and farm labor than livestock production. The result
further indicated constrains affecting youth participation were statistically significantly different
between inadequate credit facilities, initial capital, production input, poor infrastructure, low
farming profit and lack of agricultural insurances at p-value<0.05. Lack of agricultural
insurances was highly statistically significant in comparison with all other constrains affecting
youth involvement in agriculture. Government should ensure provision of a workable
agricultural insurance scheme for young farmersand it should be accessible. This will in turn
encourage them to be fully engage in agricultural production. |
