Perception of Agriculture Students Towards Farming as a Means of Sustainable Livelihood in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study identified the perception of final year agriculture students of the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT) and the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST) towards farming as a means of sustainable livelihood. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 173 respondents for the study. Data was collected with the aid of a questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics. The findings show that 57.22% of the respondents were between the ages of 22-24 years. About 73% of the respondents were willing to take up farming as a means of sustainable livelihood. Livelihood preference of respondents in other areas of agriculture other than farming showed that the majority preferred to work in commercial banks (5.0), agricultural company (3.62), ministry of agriculture (3.23), food processing industry (3.39), agricultural bank (4.05), Non-governmental organizations (4.27) and agricultural marketing departments (4.46). The major perceived challenges of respondents in taking up farming as a means of sustainable livelihood include inaccessibility of land, high cost of farm machineries, and insufficient initial capital. It was recommended that Government agencies and NGOs should make available incentives and farm machineries for Agriculture graduates who are willing to take up farming as a means of sustainable livelihood. Land should be easily assessable to agriculture graduates to encourage their willingness to work, this could be done through lease by the government and other governmental bodies in charge of land allocation.

Key words: Perception, Agriculture, Sustainable livelihood, students