young people are unfavourably disposed to agriculture
Against the backdrop of the generally accepted narrative that young people are unfavourably disposed to agriculture based on previous research findings, results from this study show diverse views and opinions of the aspirations of young rural men and women in agriculture.
The result shows that more males (40.2%) desire a full-time farming career compared to females (26.4%). Also, close to half (44.8%) of the male respondents expressed their desire to participate in farming, at least on a part-time basis, compared to 34.5% of females. However, there were more young women (39.1%) not willing to engage in agricultural-related livelihood compared to young men (14.9%). This finding shows that more young men are eager to take up farming in the future compared to young women. The reason for this preference might be due to the choice of young men (31.0%) to reside in rural areas compared to young women (26.4%).
Similarly, parents seem to share similar aspirations in agriculture with their children. Both fathers and mothers prefer young women not to engage in full-time farming but favour part-time farming more for female children than their male counterparts. In contrast, fathers and mothers generally prefer young men to engage in full-time farming compared to young women.
Furthermore, the result shows that farm satisfaction had a significant positive correlation with full-time and part-time future farm engagement on both young men and young women. In contrast, while membership in the organization and preferred location had a significant negative correlation with full-time farm engagement by young men, preferred location and aspiration index was found to have a significant negative correlation with full-time farm engagement by young women.