Agriculture for All; Constraints to Youth Participation in Africa

Udemezue JC*

Received: July 12, 2019;   Published: July 22, 2019

DOI: 10.32474/CIACR.2019.07.000256

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Abstract

Youths are the essential resources for every nation, especially for sustaining agricultural productivity as an important sector for nation building. Unfortunately, this category of people is virtually left out in policies and program considerations even though this is a critical stage for this group of people for transition into adulthood. The unemployment rate of this group globally ranked 12.6% compared with 4.8% as the rate of the adults in 2010 and this has the possibility of tempting most youth to embark on migration especially to urban centers and beyond since this act creates opportunities for accessing job opportunities. Agriculture being one of the foundation pillars of any society can only function as such if this insufficient youth participation is reversed. For instance, improving youth productivity in the agricultural sector and exploring effective livelihood diversification is imperative. Also, investing in the youth by promoting good habits is crucial if they are to realize their full potential. Involvement of youth in agricultural activities has the potential of reducing the problems of the ageing farm population and decreasing youth unemployment and this calls for securing the interest and participation of young people in agriculture in the form of a deliberate shift in policy, training and promotion that specially targets the youth.

This category of people is not only the productive backbone of every society, the major source of ideas and innovation, but also the main market for food consumption and very often the leaders and drivers of public opinion, public policy and action. As a result of this, this paper used already published literature to review the constraints to youths’ participation in agriculture in Africa. However, the paper recommended that: Youth’s organization example, young farmers clubs, should be encouraged and strengthened in some African states in order to obtain moral education and material assistance needed for agricultural transformation. There is the need for all well to do persons to support the youth in participating actively in agricultural production and to help them prevent those major factors that militates against their participation. Youth should be deeply involved in policy formulation; to this end, the youth should be encouraged to voice their constraints in relation to livelihood and also come together to form cooperatives for the purpose of sourcing loans for establishing farms. The image of agriculture as a dirty enterprise and a non-professional course as regarded by other professionals and laborious work with little returns must be changed, so that youth should be seeing agriculture as an inspirational career choice for African youth.

Keywords: Agriculture; constraints; youth’s participation

Abstract| Introduction| Constraints to Youths’ Participation in Agriculture| Exclusion of youth from policy-making processes| Conclusion and Recommendations| References|