Rural Youth Participation in Major Vegetable Production in Gidda Ayana District, East Wollega Zone, Oromia Rigion, Ethiopia

Waktole Bayisa Debelo,Zelleke Zewudie

doi:10.11648/j.ijaas.20210704.19

Abstract

Agriculture is a vital sector for the achievement of food security, employment creation and economic growth in the world. The climatic and soil conditions of Ethiopia allow cultivation of a wide range of horticultural crop and has a variety of vegetable crops grown in different agro ecological zones produced through commercial as well as small farmers both as a source of income as well as food. Various types of vegetable crops are grown in Ethiopia under rain-fed and irrigation systems. In Ethiopia the total land covered by potato, tomato and cabbage was 160,000ha; 3,677ha and 38,000ha respectively. The objective of this study was to analyze determinants rural youth participation in major vegetable production in the study area. Three stage sampling procedures were used in this study. The primary data were collected through focus group discussion, key informant interview, interview schedule and observation. Secondary data were collected from review of related literatures and documents. Descriptive statistics, inferential statistics and econometric model such as binary logit regression were used for analyzing quantitative data. The result of binary logit regression model analysis revealed that marital status, education level, farm experience, agricultural input supply, land size, access to irrigation and livestock ownership were statistically significant in affecting youth’s to participate in major vegetable production. Therefore, this result implies that improving farmers’ level of education, encouraging the agricultural input supply, facilitate opportunity to access more land, improving livestock production system and creating favorable access to irrigation and local government need to encourage youth to participate in major vegetable production.

Highlights

IntroductionEthiopia's national youth policy (2004) defines youth as those aged between 15-29 years
Of the total sampled respondents 41.7%, of them were participant in major vegetable farming activities while 58.3% of them have no participation in these activities
Marital status was 75% and 25% male and female youth respectively for major vegetable producer while 47.5% and 53.5 for non-producer group where the t-test analysis shows the significant influence of the variable in major vegetable production participation at 1% significance level

Summary

Introduction

Ethiopia's national youth policy (2004) defines youth as those aged between 15-29 years. Young people make up the bulk of the labor force (primarily in the agricultural sector) and bear most of the unemployment burden. More than 10 million African youth enter the continent’s workforce, posing a great challenge for youth unemployment and opportunities. It has been noted that youth have the time, power, abilities and the capacity to innovate and take risks, many young people have been underutilized [8, 6]; International Fund for Agricultural Development. Most of the youth in developing countries like Ethiopia have limited access to the farming resources [11]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion