According to the 2024 population census, Uganda’s population is comprised of a high and increasing cohort of young people, over 70 percent of the population is below the age of thirty. Evidence reveals that youth engagement in agriculture is declining amidst rising youth unemployment. This may have implications on food security, unemployment, and underemployment and may undermine the government efforts to drive economic growth through agriculture. This capstone provides insights into the determinants of youth participation in agriculture, challenges and constraints inherent to the youth in agricultural production, in Iganga district, Eastern Uganda.
The findings reveal that young farmers are concentrated more in agricultural production. a relatively lower percentage of youth involve in input supply and marketing and trade. Main constraints to youth involvement in agricultural value chain were inadequate capital, bad weather, lack of land, poor access to extension services and poor access to quality inputs, poor access to markets and pests and disease. Such constraints occur at the production/farming and marketing & trading nodes of the agricultural value chains in which majority of youth are involved. With such challenges, productivity is likely to remain low and constrain the youth to subsistence farming. Youth are disenfranchised in the ownership and management of critical assets in agricultural production, especially land which continue to impede many youths from engaging in agriculture. In addition, the results point to the fact that the youth are less likely to access credit, extension services and social capital all key factors in agricultural transformation
