Land access and Tenure security challenges. A motivation for the non-involvement of some youth in agriculture

Essay from the year 2016 in the subject Nature Protection, Landscape Conservation, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Department of Land Economy and Institutte of Land Management and Development), course: Bsc. Land Economy, language: English, abstract: There is high unemployment among the youth in Ghana and across the world. With the educated youth, it is even higher despite the prospect employment opportunities in the agricultural sector. This leaves a lot of thinking in the minds of many as to what are the motivations for such attitude of the youth. This study hypothesized that land access and tenure security are the severe factors discouraging the youth from involving in agriculture in the Techiman Traditional Area.

The study critically undertook topical and policy interventions literature review and incorporated an empirical investigation of the hypothesis and underlying issues. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative data obtained largely from questionnaires and interviews surveys. A total of 200 youths who were not currently involved in agriculture were randomly selected from some communities in the Techiman Traditional Area. The study made use of the relative importance index scale to rank the factors that motivates the youth to stay away from agriculture and other data reporting techniques.

The survey indicated that land access and tenure security challenges are not the most severe factors discouraging the youth from participating in agriculture. The youth ranked it second as a factor that discourages them from agriculture with an RlII value of 0.804. The study found out that the youth perceived lack of interest and passion for agriculture to be the most violent factor that accounts for their non-involvement in agriculture and ranked it first with an RII value of 0.815. They ranked the remaining factors in descending order from third to twelve as follows: Busy with other 'better jobs' (0.652), Lack of capital or funds (0.579), Schooling (0.568), Difficulty of the profession (0.541) , Negative perception about farming (0.512), Lack of relevant knowledge (0.499), Unreliable weather (0.480) and Unprofitability (0.437). The study also revealed that majority of the youth 140(60%) has future agricultural plans.

The study established that land access and tenure security challenges included high price of land, scarcity of agricultural land, customary restrictions, multiple sales of land, land racketeering, too short tenancy arrangement and refusal to release agricultural lands. And the study accordingly recommended the need for sustained integrated and holistic approaches to youth empowerment in agriculture.