AGRICULTURAL YOUTH SENSITIVE POLICIES, THE WAY FORWARD IN ENHANCING YOUTHS' INCLINATION TOWARDS AGRICULTURE

ABSTRACT

This study examined agricultural youth-sensitive policies as a way forward for enhancing youths' inclination towards agriculture among agricultural undergraduates in Abuja. Nigeria's economic diversification agenda has long identified youth engagement in agriculture as central to achieving food security, job creation, and sustainable rural development, a priority reinforced by the federal government's July 2023 declaration of a state of emergency on food security amid youth unemployment estimated at over 60 percent. Successive policy frameworks, from the Agricultural Transformation Agenda through the Agricultural Promotion Policy (2016–2020) and the National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (2022–2027), have sought to reposition agriculture as an attractive career path for educated young Nigerians. Yet the empirical literature paints a genuinely mixed picture of whether this ambition is being realized. On one hand, a large survey of over nine hundred undergraduate agriculture students across four Nigerian universities found that the vast majority were willing to pursue an agricultural career after graduation, with self-employment as their preferred pathway (Inegbedion & Islam, 2021), and earlier national-level analysis similarly found that youth participation in agriculture was associated with measurable poverty-reduction benefits (Osabohien et al., 2021). On the other hand, more recent and more targeted evidence complicates this picture: a study of tertiary students in Lagos found agriculture remains a relatively unfavoured career option among urban youth (Azeez, 2023); a study of agricultural education students in Kogi State, in Nigeria's North-Central region, found negative peer perceptions and institutional constraints continue to shape orientation toward the field (Shaibu et al., 2024); a 2024 study found no significant impact of youth participation in agriculture on food security outcomes, complicating assumptions that participation alone resolves food insecurity (Osabohien & Al-Faryan, 2024); and research on access to finance underscores that even willing agricultural graduates face substantial capital barriers to translating interest into practice (Abolade et al., 2024). This study identified the socioeconomic characteristics of undergraduates of Agriculture, analyzed students' satisfaction in studying Agriculture, determined students' willingness to incline into agriculture-related activities, and analyzed students' constraints to taking up agriculture as a career. A survey research design was adopted, with data collected from agricultural undergraduates in Abuja and analysed using descriptive statistics. The findings are expected to inform the design of more effective, evidence-based agricultural youth-sensitive policies.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Agriculture remains central to Nigeria's economic diversification agenda, particularly as the country seeks to reduce its historical reliance on oil revenue and confront a youth unemployment crisis that has reached alarming proportions. According to figures cited in national policy briefs, composite youth unemployment, covering Nigerians aged 15 to 35, stood at approximately 63.5 percent in the period leading up to 2023, a situation compounded by the destruction of hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland in the 2022 floods and by sharp increases in food and fuel prices. These pressures culminated in the federal government's declaration, in July 2023, of a state of emergency on food security, alongside explicit commitments to boost employment and job creation within the agricultural sector.

Government efforts to attract young people into agriculture are not new, and have accumulated into a fairly dense policy landscape over the past decade and a half. From the Agricultural Transformation Agenda of the early 2010s, which sought to reposition agriculture as a business rather than a development programme, through the Agricultural Promotion Policy (2016–2020) and the more recent National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (2022–2027) and the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit established in 2023, successive administrations have signalled an intent to modernize the sector and make it more attractive to young people. Nigeria's broader food systems transformation pathway, launched following the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, explicitly lists reducing youth unemployment among its six core goals to be achieved by 2030, alongside poverty reduction and hunger reduction, formally tying youth engagement in agriculture to the country's food security strategy at the highest policy level.

Despite this accumulated policy attention, a persistent and empirically contested question is whether the youth themselves, particularly those already studying agriculture at the tertiary level, are genuinely willing to take up agricultural careers, and what specifically motivates or discourages them from doing so. Recent large-scale evidence offers a more optimistic picture than is often assumed at the level of individual student attitudes. A study surveying over nine hundred undergraduate agriculture students across four Nigerian universities found that a large majority expressed willingness to pursue an agricultural career after graduation, with self-employment based on agricultural production emerging as the most preferred pathway, a preference that varied by gender, rural versus urban residence, and area of study (Inegbedion & Islam, 2021). This aligns with earlier national-level econometric analysis, which found that youth participation in agriculture in Nigeria was associated with measurable poverty-reduction benefits, lending empirical weight to the policy assumption that drawing youth into the sector can generate genuine welfare gains, at least under certain conditions (Osabohien, Wiredu, Nguezet, Mignouna, Abdoulaye, Manyong, Bamba, & Awotide, 2021).

However, this positive picture is far from uniform across contexts, and more recent, more targeted studies introduce important caveats. A study of tertiary students in Lagos found that agropreneurship remains a relatively unfavoured career choice among urban youth, who are often drawn instead toward careers in technology, fashion, and entertainment, despite various government agropreneurship initiatives implemented through Lagos State agencies (Azeez, 2023). Similarly, a study of agricultural education students in Kogi State, within Nigeria's North-Central region, geographically and culturally proximate to Abuja, found that factors such as peer perceptions that agriculture is "for low-achieving students," parental influence, and career flexibility all played a role in shaping students' orientation toward agriculture as a discipline and career (Shaibu et al., 2024). Perhaps most striking is evidence at the policy-outcome level questioning whether youth agricultural participation, even where it occurs, is actually delivering the food security gains policy makers assume it will. A more recent study by the same lead researcher behind the earlier poverty-reduction finding found no statistically significant impact of youth participation in agriculture on food security outcomes in Nigeria, a finding that complicates the straightforward assumption that simply increasing youth numbers in agriculture will resolve food insecurity, and suggests that the quality and terms of participation, not merely its existence, may matter more than previously assumed (Osabohien & Al-Faryan, 2024).

A further, practically important strand of the literature concerns the constraints that stand between willingness and actual uptake. Research on access to finance for sustainable agribusiness performance underscores that even agricultural graduates who are personally motivated to pursue agriculture-related careers frequently face substantial barriers in accessing the capital needed to establish or scale agribusiness ventures, a constraint that operates independently of, and can undermine, whatever intrinsic willingness a graduate may express in a survey (Abolade, Lawal, Akanbi, & Salami, 2024). Complementary research on rural non-agricultural employment similarly notes that rural youth participation in any form of productive employment, agricultural or otherwise, is constrained by low education levels, inadequate vocational skills, poor infrastructure, and limited market access, suggesting that inclination toward agriculture cannot be addressed through career-choice interventions alone but must also contend with these structural constraints (Bello, 2025).

Taken together, this literature suggests that youth inclination toward agriculture is shaped by a complex interplay of socioeconomic characteristics, satisfaction with agricultural study itself, perceived career constraints (particularly around finance and land), and broader structural and policy conditions, factors that may vary meaningfully by location and institutional context. This underscores the need for agricultural youth-sensitive policies that are informed by context-specific, rather than purely national-level, evidence, such as that provided by agricultural undergraduates in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory and a distinct policy and labour-market context in its own right, which forms the focus of this study.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Despite substantial and accumulating government policy attention to youth engagement in agriculture, spanning multiple administrations and policy frameworks over more than a decade, evidence on undergraduates' actual willingness to pursue agricultural careers remains genuinely mixed across different contexts in Nigeria. Some studies find strong willingness among agriculture students already enrolled in relevant programmes, alongside measurable poverty-reduction benefits associated with youth participation (Inegbedion & Islam, 2021; Osabohien et al., 2021), while others find agriculture to be a relatively unfavoured option among urban youth or shaped by negative peer and societal perceptions (Azeez, 2023; Shaibu et al., 2024). Compounding this uncertainty, the most recent evidence available even questions whether youth participation in agriculture, where it does occur, meaningfully improves food security outcomes at all (Osabohien & Al-Faryan, 2024), raising the stakes for getting youth-sensitive agricultural policy right rather than simply expanding participation numbers. Meanwhile, evidence on access to finance suggests that even where willingness exists, structural barriers such as capital access may prevent that willingness from translating into actual agricultural engagement (Abolade et al., 2024).

This inconsistency in the literature, combined with the absence of context-specific evidence focused on Abuja, a location with its own distinct socioeconomic profile, institutional landscape, and proximity to federal policy-making, raises important unresolved questions. Is the apparent decline in enthusiasm found in Lagos and the mixed perceptions found in Kogi State also present among agricultural undergraduates in Abuja, or does the Federal Capital Territory's distinct profile produce different patterns? Without clear evidence on the socioeconomic characteristics, satisfaction levels, willingness, and constraints of agricultural undergraduates specifically in Abuja, policy makers risk designing agricultural youth-sensitive policies based on national-level assumptions, or on evidence drawn from other states entirely, that do not address the actual barriers these students face on the ground. It is this gap that the present study seeks to address.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The main objective of the study is to examine agricultural youth-sensitive policies as a way forward for enhancing youths' inclination towards agriculture among agricultural undergraduates in Abuja. The specific objectives of the study include:

1. To identify the socioeconomic characteristics of undergraduates of Agriculture.
2. To analyze students' satisfaction in studying Agriculture.
3. To determine students' willingness to incline into agriculture-related activities.
4. To analyze students' constraints to taking up agriculture as a career.

1.4 Research Questions

1. What are the socioeconomic characteristics of undergraduates of Agriculture in Abuja?
2. What is the level of students' satisfaction in studying Agriculture?
3. What is students' willingness to incline into agriculture-related activities?
4. What constraints do students face in taking up agriculture as a career?

1.5 Research Hypotheses

Ho1: There is no significant relationship between the socioeconomic characteristics of undergraduates and their willingness to incline towards agriculture.

Ho2: Students' satisfaction in studying Agriculture has no significant effect on their willingness to take up agriculture-related activities.

Ho3: Constraints identified by students have no significant effect on their willingness to take up agriculture as a career.

1.6 Significance of the Study

This study is significant to a range of stakeholders. To policy makers within the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit, and related agencies, the findings will provide context-specific evidence to guide the design and refinement of agricultural youth-sensitive policies, moving beyond generic, nationwide assumptions toward interventions tailored to the realities facing undergraduates in Abuja specifically. To university administrators and agricultural faculties, the study will offer insight into student satisfaction levels and constraints that can inform curriculum design, career counselling, and student support services. To financial institutions and development finance agencies, the findings on students' constraints may offer useful evidence on where access-to-finance interventions could be most impactful for this demographic. To students of Agriculture themselves, the study will help surface shared concerns and constraints that may otherwise remain unaddressed in national policy discussions dominated by aggregate statistics. To development partners and non-governmental organizations working on youth employment and food security, the findings will offer evidence to guide the design of targeted agripreneurship and youth engagement programmes. Finally, the study will contribute to the broader academic literature on youth engagement in agriculture in Nigeria, complementing existing national-level and other state-level studies, and will serve as a reference for future researchers examining this increasingly important policy area.

1.7 Scope of the Study

This study is limited to examining the socioeconomic characteristics, satisfaction levels, willingness, and career constraints relating to agriculture among agricultural undergraduates in tertiary institutions in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory. The study does not extend to secondary school students, out-of-school youth, or agricultural undergraduates in other regions of Nigeria, though comparative literature from Lagos, Kogi State, and national-level studies is drawn upon throughout to contextualize the findings specific to Abuja.

1.8 Limitations of the Study

Time and resource constraints limited the study to agricultural undergraduates in Abuja rather than a nationwide sample, which may limit the generalizability of findings to other regions of Nigeria with different socioeconomic and agro-ecological conditions. Some respondents may have been reluctant to fully disclose personal socioeconomic details, potentially affecting the completeness of some responses. Additionally, self-reported willingness to pursue agriculture as a career may not perfectly predict actual future career choices, a limitation common to attitudinal survey research of this kind, and one that recent literature on the gap between willingness and access to finance suggests may be particularly relevant here (Abolade et al., 2024).

1.9 Definition of Terms

Youth-Sensitive Policy: Policy specifically designed to address the needs, concerns, and circumstances of young people, taking into account their distinct social and economic position.

Inclination: A person's tendency, disposition, or willingness toward a particular activity or career path.

Agricultural Undergraduate: A student enrolled in an undergraduate degree programme in Agriculture or a closely related field of study.

Socioeconomic Characteristics: Personal attributes relating to an individual's social and economic status, including age, gender, family income, and parental occupation.

Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurial activity specifically situated within the agricultural sector, encompassing production, processing, and value-chain participation.

Food Security: A state in which all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs.

Access to Finance: The ability of an individual or enterprise to obtain financial services, including credit and capital, needed to establish or expand an economic activity.

REFERENCES

Abolade, A. P., Lawal, I. O., Akanbi, K. L., & Salami, A. O. (2024). Unlocking the future of food security through access to finance for sustainable agribusiness performance. Entrepreneurship, Trade and Exchange Activities, DOI: 10.26661/2522-1566/2024-4/30-09.

Azeez, R. O. (2023). From school to the farm: An assessment of the motivation to become agropreneurs among students in Lagos owned tertiary institutions. Nowoczesne Systemy Zarządzania, 18(2), 89–108.

Bello, L. O. (2025). Exploring the nexus between non-agricultural employment and rural youth welfare in Nigeria. Discover Sustainability, 6, 114. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-025-00897-4

Inegbedion, G., & Islam, M. M. (2021). Willingness and motivation of Nigerian youth to pursue agricultural careers after graduation. International Journal of Agricultural Science, Research and Technology in Extension and Education Systems, 11(1), 55–69.

Osabohien, R., & Al-Faryan, M. A. S. (2024). Youth in agriculture and food security in Nigeria. International Journal of Social Economics, 52(4), 501–514. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSE-04-2021-0197

Osabohien, R., Wiredu, A. N., Nguezet, P. M. D., Mignouna, D. B., Abdoulaye, T., Manyong, V., Bamba, Z., & Awotide, B. A. (2021). Youth participation in agriculture and poverty reduction in Nigeria. Sustainability, 13(14), 7795. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13147795

Shaibu, U. M., et al. (2024). Assessment of factors influencing the choice of agriculture as a career among students of Agricultural Education, Kogi State College of Education, Ankpa. [Departmental Research Publication].