EFFECTIVENESS OF COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT (YCAD) PROGRAMME AMONG RURAL YOUTH IN EKITI STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study described the socio-economic characteristics of the beneficiaries of the Youth Commercial Agricultural Development (YCAD) Programme in Ekiti State, Nigeria.Specifically, it identified type of enterprises in YCAD programme and isolated the factors influencing the effectiveness of the programme in the state. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 174 beneficiaries/respondents for the study. A validated interview schedule was used to collect data which were summarised with percentages, means and standard deviation while chi-square and correlation were used to draw inferences. Also, factor analysis was used to isolate factors influencing the programme effectiveness. Results showed that the mean age of respondents was 37±5years, mean household size was 5±2 persons, mean year of formal education was 15±2 years and mean monthly income was ₦41,000±23,000. Results, also, showed that arable crop enterprises (47.7%) and poultry (27%) were the most preferred enterprises by the beneficiaries in the study area followed by tree crops enterprise (12.6%) and aquaculture (12.6%)respectively. In addition, five crucial factors such as Institutional factor (26.672%), Personnel factor (16.345%), Socio-economicfactor (10.626%), Experience factor (9.243%) and Constraints factor (7.506%) were isolated. Further results showed that household size (r = 0.224; p ≤ 0.01) and years of formal education (r = 0.211; p ≤ 0.01) had positive and significant relationship with
effectiveness of the YCAD programme. It was concluded from the study that YCAD was highly effective in employment generation, provision of incentives and creation of market for agricultural produce among the beneficiaries.