Socio-economic Determinants of Agripreneurship Choice among Youths in Ebonyi State, Nigeria

Abstract

ABSTRACT The current down turn in the global oil sector has necessitated the quest for alternative means of wealth creation through effective engagement of youths in agripreneurship. However, the socio-economic determinants of agripreneurship choice among youths in Ebonyi State, Nigeria seem not to have been empirically established. The study adopted a multistage sampling technique in eliciting data from one hundred and eighty youth agripreneurs using structured questionnaires. The study also employed both descriptive and inferential statistics to realize the objectives. The result showed that about 60% of the youth agripreneurs in Ebonyi State, Nigeria were males who are within the mean active age of 27 years and earn a mean annual income of N77, 333 on average household size of five 5 persons. The most revealed agripreneurial choices of the youths were farm production (crop and livestock production), farm input supply, agro-processing, and marketing/distribution. The probit regression analysis result revealed that with the Pearson Goodness-of-fit of 1148.799 which was statistically significant at 1% (P<0.01), and the Pseudo R2 value of 0.058, the socio-economic characteristics of youth has strong significant effect on the agripreneurial choice among the youth. Based on the findings, the study recommended for agripreneurship education and training at all levels to ensure capacity building among the youth for diverse agro-enterprises.