The Effect of Financial Services on Youth Involvement in Agribusiness Entrepreneurship in Fako Division, Cameroon

Abstract

The main objective of this article was to examine the role of financial services on youth involvement in agribusiness entrepreneurship activities in the Fako division of the South West Region of Cameroon. Primary data were obtained with the use of a self-administer questionnaire. Which were administered using a stratified sampling technique. The target population was youths between the age of 18 to 35 years involved in any agribusiness-related activity for commercial purposes. Questionnaires were administered to a sample of 500 youths but only 451 of the questionnaires were returned without any error. We adopted a binary logistic estimation technique to analyze our model. Empirical analysis from a binary logistic estimation using marginal effect coefficients for the overall results revealed that; youth who have personal saving increases their likelihood of involving in agribusiness entrepreneurship activities in Fako at a very high level (main occupation) by 0.0986. Meanwhile, government financial services for youth involved in agribusiness has a positive significant effect on youth involvement in agribusiness with a likelihood of 0.6428. Furthermore, youths who are part of a Tontine increase their likelihood of involving in agribusiness entrepreneurship as a main occupation by 0.0233. Also, youths using bank financial services such as bank loan has a likelihood of reducing youths involvement in agribusiness as a main occupation by 0.0520 while those using microfinance services have a likelihood of 0.0354 of engaging youths in agribusiness as a primary activity. We recommend that the government of Cameroon should develop innovative financial services specifically for youths involved in agribusiness-related activities.