Examining the willingness of youths to participate in agriculture to halt the rising rate of unemployment in South Western Nigeria

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the willingness of unemployed graduates to participate in agriculture with a view to showcase the potentials in Nigerian agriculture especially in the area of employment generation for the youths. Design/methodology/approach - The study made use of primary data collected with the aid of structured questionnaires from 180 respondents from the three states of Ondo; Oyo and Osun states are the representative states from the entire South West. The binary logistic regression model was used to identify those factors that influence the willingness of the respondents who were graduates of various disciplines to participate in agriculture. Findings - The findings of the study showed that the majority of the respondents interviewed representing 62.8 percent were unemployed with the majority of the respondents (68.3 percent) willing to participate in agriculture given the needed and required supports such as conducive environment by the stakeholders particularly the government. Educational status, marital status, gender, possession of agricultural training and employment status of respondents significantly influenced their willingness to participate in agriculture. Research limitations/implications - The greatest limitation of this study is its sample size which is considerably small but considering the peculiarity in the challenges faced by the entire population; this limitation has been overcome, thus, making its findings valid for policy purposes. However, recommendations for further studies that would comprise the entire geopolitical zones of the country to pave way for comparative analysis were made. Originality/value - The study is originally carried out by conducting a survey to collect the data and is coming to fill the existing gap in the literature in terms of potentials embedded in Nigerian agriculture to assist the government in providing employment opportunities for teeming youths.