The oil boom of the 1970s in Nigeria has negatively impacted the young generation's psychology about agriculture. This has led to a continued drain of workforces. The general view on agriculture is of a ‘murky' business, as such always relegated within choices. Myriad programs and projects are being rolled out to revamp agriculture and attract youth in Nigeria. However, they remain largely with insignificant positive results and most of them with little or no deliberate appeal strategy towards enchanting youth. This research analyses the level of youth involvement in agribusinesses in Jigawa, describes and analyses ICTs landscape, then presents innovative approaches towards enchanting youth for agri-preneurial enterprises. Purposive sampling was used to select locations of data collection while convenient sampling was employed to elicit data. Results reveal that the youth entrepreneurial involvement is towards marketing, while a robust ICTs platform exist for supporting enterprises. Also, three packages were drawn and presented for the promotion of agri-prenuership in Nigeria.
TopBackground
The oil boom of the 70s and rudimentary, static nature of agricultural systems in Nigeria have entrenched a general view of agriculture as a murky business and, thus a vocation of the backwards. Hence, most youth and graduates prefer white collared jobs to agricultural ventures, resulting in a myriad of problems amongst which are rural-urban migration, increased unemployment rate, poverty and neglect of agricultural production. Lack or absence of efficient and effective information in the country has further aggravated this outflow of youth, where potentials and prospects are not disseminated enough to attract them and the little workforce enjoyed by the sector is continuously drained out. Previously, before the discovery of oil, agricultural enterprises and ventures across the agricultural value chain not only ensured able employment but sufficient income and economic prosperity within a functioning food system. Northern Nigeria had a booming agricultural production and other dependent enterprises like oil mills, textiles to small traditional confectionaries of making snacks, candies (alawa), sweet syrups (madi)* etc. However, since the discovery of oil, the sector has witnessed a continuous drain of its workforce and key actors to white-collared and menial jobs within cities. This has always lessened the food sources which are produced in most cases through smallholder families from rural areas. The food system is thus faced with the problem of demand-supply imbalance in the face of the expected herculean task on it. The food system as alluded by FAO, is expected to feed an estimated excess of 9.5 billion people by the year 2050 (FAO, 2016b). A goal that is clearly agreed by the world as one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of ending hunger.
In Nigeria, where the population is also rising and thus demand for food, the problems of aging farmers, disenchanted youth, and little access to information in terms of extension services is a glaring reality. Together with the economic recession occasioned by plummeting oil prices with attendant rising unemployment, poverty, hunger, malnutrition, the pressure has never been higher on the food system. In response, the Nigerian policymakers have rolled out numerous policies and implemented several programs for the sector’s development as an avenue of ensuring constant supply for a healthy, prosperous population (Adegoke, Araba, & Ibe, 2014). In fact, globally, it is prescribed that if sustainable development is to be achieved in most developing nations, it must be through agriculture (FAO and AFDB, 2019). Nigeria has launched various programs to promote agriculture and agricultural value chain development hence agribusinesses have been especially focused on the agricultural transformation agenda of the country (Adegoke et al., 2014; Obiora, 2014). Although the focus is apt and is aimed to increase the profitability of the sector’s activities, the agricultural information systems are faced with a shortage of professional extension service providers (Oladele, 2013). Extension agents are grossly inadequate and thus could not cover the more 70 million estimated agricultural value chain actors; therefore, participation is mostly not of genuinely stimulated interest but for access to funds which are always diverted outside the sector (Muktar, Mukhtar, & Ahungwa, 2015). Usually, these lots are mostly compelled by their poor demography to partake as such the enthusiasm to innovate, add value and enter into agriprenuerial exploits is minimal.
Obviously, if the agricultural sector is focused on resuscitating itself, a lot more has to be done in the area of repositioning the information system, especially in the face of other challenges of climate change and its extremes events of the flood, drought and other shocks (FAO, 2016a). The agricultural value chain activities are heavily dependent on information through extension services, where agronomical activities, market information, value addition and stimulation of innovations are all dependents on how much information is accessed and utilized by an individual actor.