Browsing by Author "Njeru, Lucy Karega"

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    Influence of selected factors on youth participation in agriculture in Kajiado North Sub-County, Kenya
    (Egerton University, 2016-04) Njeru, Lucy Karega
    About 60% of the Kenyan population is comprised of youth. Agriculture provides over 80% of employment opportunities and livelihood to Kenyans. However, while youth unemployment is rising, youth engagement in agriculture is declining. Kenya‟s service and industrial sectors have not created enough jobs for the youthful labour force. Declining youth engagement in agriculture has implications on household and national food and nutritional security, unemployment and underemployment which may undermine the Government‟s efforts to ensure the 10% national economic growth through agriculture as envisioned in the country‟s Vision 2030. This study investigated the influence of selected factors on youth participation in agriculture in Kajiado North Sub-County focusing on youth 18-35 years old. The study used a Cross-Sectional Survey Design and was guided by five research objectives. Stratified random sampling was used to obtain a sample size of 397 respondents consisting of 192 male and 205 female youth. A census was used for agricultural and youth officers. The Sub-County was purposively sampled because of its potential for agricultural productivity and for having the highest number of educated unemployed youth compared to other Sub-Counties in the County. Data were collected using two questionnaires, one for youth and the other for agriculture and youth officers. The instrument‟s content validity was ascertained by a panel of five experts from the Department of Agricultural Education and Extension. A pilot test was conducted in Kajiado East Sub-County to determine the instrument‟s reliability coefficient, which was 0.86α and 0.80α for youth and for officers respectively. Both reliability coefficients were above the 0.70 threshold for acceptable reliability in educational research. Qualitative data was classified into common themes to identify the emerging trends and was analyzed by Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (PPMCC). Frequency tables and percentages were used to summarize the data. The results showed a statistically significant positive relationship between the selected factors: youth access to land (r=0.345, p=0.01), finances (r=0.197, p=0.01) and markets (r=0.330, p=0.01) and youth perception of agriculture (r=0.675 p=0.01) all of which influenced their participation in agriculture. The policy-makers, development practitioners and other actors in the Sub-County and in Kenya as a whole should develop a coherent and integrated initiative to address core challenges facing the youth when entering the agriculture sector. The initiative should improve youth perception of agriculture and increase their access to the agriculture sector, offers great opportunities for agricultural productivity as well as food and nutritional security and sustainability.
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    Influence of Youth Access to Farm Products Markets on their Participation in Agriculture in Kajiado North Sub-County
    (International Journal of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development Studies, 2015) Njeru, Lucy Karega; Mwangi, John Gowland PhD.
    ABSTRACT: Agriculture in Kenya has great untapped potential for providing employment opportunities for youth that would enable them exploit their creativity, economic innovation and access to agricultural product markets in order to spur faster national economic growth. Reducing cereal importation in Kenya through local investment and expanding of markets for agricultural products can effectively create youth employment. A number of youth took part in agriculture in Kajiado North Sub- County with maize being the most preferred crop while poultry keeping the most preferred livestock activity by youth The influence of youth access to markets for agricultural products on their participation in agriculture in Kajiado North SubCounty was poorly understood and hence the need for this study, which used a cross-sectional design to collect data from 397 randomly, selected youth and 22 youth and agricultural officers. Content validity of the youth and agricultural officers’ questionnaires was ascertained by extension experts while reliability was determined through a pilot test involving 30 respondents. The reliability coefficient were 0.86α and 0.80α respectively, which were above the 0.70 threshold for acceptable reliability. The results showed a statistically significant positive relationship (r=.330, p=.01) between youth access to markets and their participation in agriculture. It also showed that youth access to markets influenced their participation in agriculture with 57.4% of the respondents indicating that poor infrastructures and limited knowledge on market prices reduced their access to markets for agricultural commodities. Youth with easy access to markets for their products had higher participation rates in agricultural activities than those with minimal access to markets. The government and other factors should support formation of organizations that can give youth the necessary bargaining power to interact on equal terms with other market actors in order to reduce transaction costs through economies of scale when buying inputs and selling produce.