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Abstract: Participation is a concept that has multi-dimensional meanings depending on the user. Youth
participation in the same vein can be perceived according to the circumstance, the need, and the nature of the
subject involved in the participation. Therefore, youth participation in agriculture training program in malete
farm is a circumstantial idea designed to empower the youth in order to acquire some skills in agriculture
business. This study examines the extent of youth participation in this program considering the prevailing socioeconomic condition of the youth and how the youth is involved in segments of the participation process. Using
Malete youth Integrated Training Farm, qualitative case study method was employed for the study and the
findings revealed that, there was adifferent degree of participation in the decision-making, implementation,
sharing and evaluation. It appears that youth participate in the program as induced by the government through
the monthly stipend and other motivational packages.
Keywords:Agricultural training, community development, MaleteFarm,participation, Youth Participation
I.
Introduction
Participation in agriculture has become a new paradigm in addressing the high rate of youth
unemployment in Nigeria in order to reduce youth restiveness, criminal activities and susceptibility to other
criminal acts. In this kind of intervention program, participation will require some processes that could be
perceived from different angles or as seen by the users. Theseviewsconformto the nature of social science
concepts or constructs that have multidimensional opinions and interpretations that their usage are based on
application. Participation is one of the key principles of community development because it involves people in
the community project [1]. Involvement of people in thecommunityproject allows democracy, sharing of
resources and sense of ownership, which also rest upon membership of the community as we found in this
study;that focuses on the youth community.
Participation, as a concept emerged as a community strategy in 1950 in order to put the social unrest
that arose with post-colonial developing world under control [2]. Around 1970s, the United Nations initiated a
shift from top-bottom to make participation more democratic and encourage active participation. In this way,
participation will become voluntary, and people-centred so that development goals will be achieved. By 1980s
and 1990, participation has become part of the mainstream of development (3, 4). It, therefore, became
aparadigm shift in participatory development as participation entered into development fields. The entrance
attracted donors, international organizations, and NGOs because, it was more a grassroots base and peoplecentred approach to development (3, 5).
However, it is important to mention that, participation as an essential element in community
development can occur in different circumstances, even though, the bottom-up is favored as the best form of
participation. It is a fact that, people or beneficiaries of a community development project tend to protect and
show more commitment to a project that is initiated by them. But, in another situation that the community does
not discover the potentials of a development project or the need for such project; mobilization and sensitization
of people in such community is imminent either by the government or through its agency as part of government
responsibility to cater for the people through initiation of developmental projects. Participation is to take part
in, or to be involved in theactivity and this could be through different ways. Kinyasha [6] explained that, the
term, participation means being part,' whereas part means an integral and essential features or component of
something.' Therefore, community participation is involvement of a community or a condition of been involved
in a community action. In other word, "community" can be referred to as a group of people that is organized
and have a typical value, attributed to geographical location, and social cohesion but larger than a household
community; this can be a tribe, gender group, religion, age group (e.g. youth), etc. [7] .As regarding the concern
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II.
The aim of this study is to determine the extent of youth participation in agriculture training program at
Malete Integrated Youth Farm with a view to know the extent of youth involvement in different segment of the
agriculture training program structure.
III.
This study applied thequalitative method of data collection and analysis. Qualitative research method is
an umbrella term covering an array of interpretative techniques which to describe, decode, translate and
otherwise come to terms with the meaning, not the frequency, of certain more or less naturally occurring
phenomenon in the social word [14]. As components of the case study, interviews were conducted with the
stakeholders. These include the youth participants, the government officials, and implementers. The interview
enabled the researcher to understand the feelings and motivating factor for the youth as occasioned by the social
problem to participate in the program and the degree of their involvement as a response to the social challenges
in one hand, and their role in the process of participation in the agricultural training.
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IV.
Findings
The results of the study indicated differences in the extent of youth participation in anagricultural
training program at MaleteYouthFarm (Table 1). The difference can be based on the nature of the program as an
intervention program and the prevailing social condition of the youth and the motivational strategy adopted by
the government in terms of monthly stipend and empowerment package of farm land, residence on the farm and
other expected support from the government. The result was also attached to the extent of participation in
decision-making, implementation, benefit (or loss) sharing, and evaluation of the program.
Themes
Implementation
Benefit sharing
Evaluation
Enlistment / recruitment;
Duration / range of activities
Capacity building;
Membership
of
thecooperative society.
Personal benefit
Social benefits
Material benefits.
Extent of
participation
(Findings)
Low
Low
Low
High
High
High
High
High
High
Low
No
participation
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Capacity building
Capacity building is the central transformation point in a program that is targeted to impact the ability
of youth in a way that will be more beneficial to them socially, economically, psychologically and by extension,
politically. Capacity building is an empowerment either by imparting or acquiring new skills or adding to
existing skills of the beneficiary in order to improve their knowledge in the new skill. The findings on the
degree of youth participation in capacity building as an implementation stage revealed that, the whole burden of
participation in this context rested on capacity building. For any participants to get empowered in this program,
he or she must have participated in the capacity building schedules that cover agricultural skills on; crop
production, agriculture engineering, livestock production, and rural enterprise / extension. The breakdowns of
these four areas include a number of other classroom theory and field practical work on the ratio 2:8
respectively. Specifically, records and observation shows that, the objective of the capacity building include;
(1) To train youth farmers in modern agriculture and agroforestry practices.
(2) Vocationally, trainees must at the end of the program be able to:
- Produce arange of agricultural products efficiently for income generation. (Tree crops such as cocoa, cashew,
oil palm, plantain, citrus etc., arable crops such as rice, cowpea, maize, millet, sorghum, cassava, soya bean,
and yams, etc. Livestock such as sheep, goat, cattle, poultry, rabbit, and agro-forestrythat involves
theproduction such as honey, snail, grass cutter, mushrooms etc.);
- Operate, maintain and service various farm implements including animal traction implements as well as
carry out asimple survey and understand simple technical drawing;
- Carry out soil conservation methods and demonstrate knowledge of irrigations processes;
- Demonstrate knowledge of simple storage and preservation of farm produce;
- Carry out accounting and managerial activities on his farm (stock taking, balance sheet, cost statistics,
planning, Organizational command, coordination, and control.
From the findings above, participation in the implementation is high because it involve a kind of
partnership between the government and the youth while the youth take part in the primary schedule that
signifies implementation[17].The high degree of participation in implementation can also be related to
conceptualizing participation as an end due to the integrated skills and knowledge acquired in relation to the
social, economic and psychological potentials contained in the capacity development schedules [23]. By
extension, the program also gave the youth freedom to make suggestions and criticize the activities for the
improvement of the process [16].
4.2.4
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V.
Discussion
The extent of participation in thedevelopment program is mostly related to theapproach of the program.
If a development program or project is initiated by the people, it is believed to be bottom up approach.
Therefore, the degree of participation is expected to be high [24]. In other way, if the program is initiated by the
government, it is a top bottom approach, and therefore, extent of participation is expected to be low because
such program is imposed on the people by the government or an external body as the case may be [11]. As a
balance between the bottom up and top bottom approach is the situation of the people coming together with
the government to initiate a development program. This will make the two parties to partner in terms of
responsibility. This approach is referred to in the field of community development as partnership approach. In
this case, the extent of participation is expected to be moderate [9].
While the above is the general believe in the field of community development, it is important to point
that the extent of participation may not rely only on the approach. The nature of such development project is
another important factor in determining the degree at which people participate in such program or project. As in
the case of this study, it is a youth empowerment program that is aimed to reduce the rate of unemployment.
Therefore, it is an intervention program for a group in a society. As an intervention program, it appears to mean
that those affected have been victims of social injustice o0r denial. In this case, the approach cannot be
otherwise than a government intervention because; one cannot expect any contribution (as in partnership
approach) from the unemployed youth in terms of material but participation only. Youth participation, in this
case, is pushed by their helpless condition of unemployment that had kept them at socio economic
disadvantage. Therefore, approach to the development program, as found in this study as it appears to be top bottom, does not affect the extent of youth participation in the training program.
It can also be observed in this study that, the youth participated in the determinant variables upon
which their involvement in the training program is described; decision-making, implementation, and benefit
sharing [20]. To a large extent, the extent of participation in these variables can say to be commensurate with the
nature of the program or the circumstances that ignite the government intervention in order to reduce the rate of
unemployment among the youth.This explains why the extent of participation is low at the level of decisionmaking and high at the level of implementation because implementation is the key area of the program. If the
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VI.
Conclusions
Participation, as mentioned earlier, does not have a universally accepted definition like other social
science terminologies, but as placed by users. A number of authors have agreed with the definition of
participation by Cohen and Uphoff [20] as one that described the new paradigm of community development
popularly known as bottom-up approach which is the guide for this study.Findings of this study, as presented,
shows that, prevailing conditions, and push factor of idleness, economic need and individual conviction can
enhance participation of youth in empowerment program, even from thetop-bottom approach.As the result
indicates, participation in decision making was low because the program was introduced as intervention
program by the government, but the youth were still involved either by suggestion, cohesion or inducement [16,
17, 25].Participation of youth in implementation in this study did not reflect the top-bottom nature of the
program because participation was high in implementation despite duration of the program, enlistment
procedure, rigor capacity building schedules and range of other activities. Findings of the benefit also can be
described as normal because the outcome of such program cannot be all positive. Therefore, when looking at
sharing of thebenefit of a development program, the harmful conditions too are likely to be shared [20]. Finally,
the findings on evaluation appear to indicate a threat to thesustainability of the program. In the absent of
efficient evaluation system, it will be difficult to know the result of outcome of a development program, or
measure the success or failure and causes of either in qualitative and quantitative terms in the long run. In this
situation, the program will not be sustained.
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