Assessment of Factors Influencing Youth Participation in Agri-Business in Kericho County, Kenya

Abstract

Youths have the potential to engage in Agri–business but most of them view Agri–business as a petty job resulting to mass unemployment. The general objective of this research was to analyze the assessment of factors influencing youth participation in Agri-business in Kericho County. The specific objectives were; to assess influence of youth attitudes towards youth participation in Agri-business in Kericho County, to establish the influence of access to credit facility towards youth participation in Agri-business in Kericho County, to examine influence of access to land towards youth participation in Agri-business in Kericho County and to determine the influence of perceived benefits towards youth participation in Agri-business in Kericho County. The study was guided by push and pull theory, theory of reasoned action and utility maximization theory. The study adopted descriptive research design and inferential statistics. The target population of this study consisted of 7560 youths who are registered with youth groups that currently engage in various agribusinesses in the Kericho County. The study focused on Kericho County due to recently emergence of agriculture as a source of livelihood for youths facing unemployment in county and the huge potential the region has in terms of supporting agribusiness activities. The sample size for this study was 384 which was derived using fisher 1998 formula. Stratified and random sampling was used where 384 respondents was sampled from a population of 7560 youth that currently engaged in 504 agribusinesses groups in the Kericho County. In this study, the questionnaire was utilized in data collection and data collected was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results revealed a positive and significant relationship youth attitudes and youth participation in Agri-business in Kericho County. The results further revealed that access to credit facility affect youth participation in Agri-business in Kericho County positively and significantly. The result also indicated that access to land affect youth participation in Agri-business in Kericho County positively and significantly. The study findings also indicated that the correlation between perceived benefits and youth participation in Agri-business in Kericho County was positive and significant. This implies that an improvement in the indicators of perceived benefits positively leads to an increase in youth participation in Agri-business in Kericho County. The study findings recommended that Kericho County to invest more in youth attitudes, access to credit facility and access to land practices as these practices improves the youth participation in Agri-business.