Factors Affecting Youth Participation in Commercial Pig Production: Goromonzi District, Mashonaland East

Abstract

This study examined factors affecting youth participation in commercial pig production in Goromonzi district of Zimbabwe. Data were collected using structured questionnaire administered to a random sample of 60 youth farmers in the district. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Multiple Regression Model .The descriptive statistics showed thatthe average youth farmer sold 70.78pigsper annum, which was used as a measure of participation in pig production. The average age of the youth that participated in the study was 29.4years and the average household size from which the youth farmers belonged had 5 members. The male respondents made up sixty-eight percent of the participants and seventy percent of the youth were married.Of the participants eighty-three percent had obtained at least secondary level education. According to the study sixty-three percent of the youth had access to finance, sixty-eight to markets and seventy-seven to land and only fourty-eight percent had access to extension. It also shows that sixty-three percent of the youth farmers perceived pig production as a viable and profitable enterprise.The regression analysisshowed that age, access to finance, access to markets, access to land and access to extension are the major determinants of youth participation in commercial pig production.These positively and significantly affect youth participation as measured by annual sales of pigs by youth farmers. The regression analysis was also ran using actual cash sales made from the pork sold annually as a measure of youth participation. The results showed a similar conclusion that, age, access to finance, land, markets and extension were also positively and significantly affecting youth participation. However, while the results shown are similar, the R2 and the adjusted R2 show that using number of pigs sold as a measure of analysis strengthened the model. The model improved from 61.5% to 63.7% for R2 and from 53.6% to 56.3% for adjusted R2. The results also show that most youth farmers engage in horticulture, poultry production while others are employed to supplement sources of income, hence as alternative sources of livelihood. Recommendations given were cartegorised according to the stakeholders in the pig production eneterprise. Policy makers are encouraged to introduce policies that enable youth participation, while the private sector, contractors and financial service providers are encouraged to introduce more flexible company policies that are not inhibitive to youth who are still struggling with acquisition of capital, knowledge and whose experience hasnot earned them economies of scale. This will enable increased participation in the pig production industry.