Profile analysis of rural youth and their preferences about agri-enterprises

Introduction

The future of any country is intimately connected with that of her young people. The importance of youth as key agent for development of a nation is amply recorded in many national and international development policies. Young people are the most important human resources, driving force for social, economic and intellectual development and also contribute for the technological enhancement of a nation. Being the future stirrers of national affairs, the challenges faced by youth are considered as critical for social and economic development of the present central India is giving utmost priority to engaging youth in agriculture. This is apparent from the global trend of youth moving away from agriculture and rural areas. Unemployment rates for youth are three times higher than for adults in all world regions, and a vast majority of unemployed youth are young women. Youth also face serious barriers in accessing land, credit and other productive assets for establishing their own livelihoods, and many young people lack the right to representation in workers' unions or producers' organization The given study is mainly aimed to know profile characteristics and preferences of rural youth about Agrienterprises. Rural youth are more likely than urban youth to contribute to their families through completion of productive work, such as caring for livestock or completing other agricultural duties. These contributions are thought to enhance the sense of responsibility and self-efficacy of rural youth, particularly in the later teenage. This may be particularly true in multigenerational farming families, where the expectation that every family member will contribute to the shared enterprises is often consistently www.extensionjournal.com emphasized. The study's findings will be useful in helping different organizations and institutes create training programs or incubation centre for youth and policies that are helpful, effective, and focused on the needs of the rural youth.

Methodology

The present study was carried out in Yavatmal district of Vidarbha region of Maharashtra state in three selected tahsils viz. Kalamb, Ralegaon, Arni. Thus, from selected villages 8 number of rural youth (between age group of 15 to 29) having minimum half acre of land were selected i.e. total 120 rural youth were selected by simple random sampling method to constitute 120 respondents for the present study. Data were collected by personal interview of respondents. Their responses were considered for the purpose of the study. The objectives were studied to study the profile of rural youth and to study the preferences of rural youth about agri-enterprises. From the above Table no 3, it was seen that 71.67 per cent of respondents were preferred agri-enterprises followed by 16.66 per cent of them were highly preferred agrienterprises and 11.67 per cent of them were less preferred agri-enterprises.

Relation analysis of personal profile of rural youth with the preferences of rural youth about agri enterprises

From Table no 4. In case of preferences, the correlation coefficient of personal profile characteristics of rural youth such as education, training received, family size, family income, credit availability, sources of information, entrepreneurial contact, achievement motivation and economic motivation were found positive and highly significant with their preferences about agri-enterprises at 0.01 level of probability. Whereas the characteristics of rural youth such as age was found positive and significant with the preferences about the agri-enterprises at 0.05 level of probability. While land holding was found to be negatively significant with the preferences about the agrienterprises at 0.05 level of probability. Whereas innovativeness was found to be non significant with the preferences about the agri-enterprises. respectively.

Results and Discussion

From the observations of Personal profile of rural youth, it is concluded that most of the youth has belongs to the age group of 20-25 and they have completed their education up to college or university level. Majority of rural youth does not receive the training for establishing the agri-enterprises because in rural area incubation centres are not well established and lack of rural youth organization at local level and this finding aligned with Kadate (2021) [2] . In case of size of family nearly half of the respondent had large sized family having more than 6 members in their family, the findings of this investigation are aligned with those of a previous study done by jamunkar (2022) [3 ] . Proportionally higher per cent of respondents had small sized land i.e. 1.01 to 2.00 ha. nearly one third of respondent 30.83 per cent had high level of income above Rs. 3,00,000. The majority of respondent had not credit availability because of they do not have any major income source. The great majority of rural youth had used medium level sources of information. While in case of entrepreneurial contact, majority of respondent have medium level of entrepreneurial contact. Motivation majority of respondents have medium level achievement motivation, nearly three-fifth of the respondents had medium level economic motivation and majority of rural youth had medium level innovativeness and this finding aligned with Jamunkar (2023) [3] . Regarding of Preferences rural youth about agri-enterprises majority of rural youth (71.67%) had Preferred preferences towards agrienterprises. The majority of respondents mostly preferred agri-enterprises, goat rearing followed by poultry farming, dairy farming and vegetable gardening. The findings of this investigation are aligned with those of a previous study done by Uttej et al. (2022) [1] and Tekale el al. (2024) [4] .

Conclusion

It is concluded from the present study shows that majority of youth belongs to 20 to 29 years age group, while most of rural youth (60.85%) were educated up to college or university level and nearly one third of rural youth belong to income of Rs. 3,00,000 and mostly preferred agrienterprises by rural youth are goat rearing (79.16%) followed by poultry (55.83%), dairy farming (39.16%) and vegetable gardening (35.00%) respectively. So that government or private agencies should provide the trainings related to the most preferred agri-enterprises. also, they should provide funds / subsidies for starting new agrienterprises as preferred by youth in yavatmal district.

References

1. Uttej D, Sreenivasa Rao I, Sreenivasulu M, Sailaja A. Aspiration of Rural Youth in Agriculture and Allied Sectors. Asian J Agric Ext Econ Sociol. 2022;40(1):110-116.
2. Tekale VS, Parshuramkar SG, Gomase AS, Datir PR. Preferences and attitude of rural youth towards agrientrepreneurship. Int J Agri Extn Soc Dev. 2024;7(6):224-7.
3. Gomase AS, Tekale VS, Bhople PP, Koshti NR. Profile of rural youth of Vidarbha region engaged in Agriculture. J Multilogic Sci. 2022, 12(40).
4. Gedam CV, Tekale VS, Gandhale AA. Profile analysis of tribal youth. J Pharmacognosy Phytochem. 2019;8(1):89-92.
5. Gandhale AA, Khalage MI, Deshmukh JM. Profile analysis of aspired rural youth. Multilogic Sci. 2018;7(95):60-62.