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Who Wants to Farm? Answers Depend on How You Ask: A Case Study on Youth Aspirations in Kenya

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/11792/
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-020-00352-2
doi:10.1057/s41287-020-00352-2
 
Title Who Wants to Farm? Answers Depend on How You Ask: A Case Study on Youth Aspirations in Kenya
 
Creator LaRue, K
Daum, T
Mausch, K
Harris, D
 
Subject Agricultural Research
Rural Development
 
Description While there is a consensus that rural poverty has to be reduced, there are two opposing
views on the role that agriculture can play in this regard: a “farm-based” and an
“off-farm led” development paradigm where the respective other sector is merely
a complementary income source during a transition period. The latter paradigm is
supported by studies finding that rural youth in sub-Saharan Africa are not particularly
interested in agriculture. However, policy discourse on youth in agriculture
often situates their aspirations as either full-time farming or non-farming, thus either
supporting or opposing one or the other of the two paradigms, while neglecting the
shades of grey between these two extremes. Using a mixed-methods approach—a
household survey and a narrative-based tool called SenseMaker—to collect data
from both adults and youth in 261 households in rural Kenya, this study suggests
that this categorical understanding needs to be revisited to inform rural development
strategies based on the actual aspirations of rural youth.
 
Publisher Palgrave Macmilan Ltd
 
Date 2021-01
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/11792/1/s41287-020-00352-2.pdf
LaRue, K and Daum, T and Mausch, K and Harris, D (2021) Who Wants to Farm? Answers Depend on How You Ask: A Case Study on Youth Aspirations in Kenya. The European Journal of Development Research (TSI). ISSN 0957-8811