Participatory diagnostic survey of constraints to youth involvement in cocoa production in Cross River State of Nigeria

Youth's roles in cocoa production cannot be undermined considering the need to ensure succession plan, industry success, and guaranteed future. The study diagnosed constraints hindering youth involvement in cocoa production in Cross River State, Nigeria. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 20% of cocoa producing Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Cross River State resulting in three LGAs. To obtain a sample for the study, snowball techniques were used to select 45 youths, who are cocoa farmers, per LGA to give sample size of 135 cocoa farmers. The findings revealed that the majority of respondents (95%) were male, and between ages 21 and 40 years (82.5%). Regarding educational status, the majority of respondents (66.7%) have secondary school education while few (5%) realized above 2,500USD/ha from cocoa farm annually. The study revealed that respondents agreed that there are numerous constraints militating against youth involvement in cocoa farming. Eight major constraints identified among these constraints are youth rural-urban migration, high cost of cocoa production due to incidence of pests and diseases and youth interest in commercial motorcycle "Okada" business. Respondents ranked non-availability of basic amenities, rigorous nature of cocoa farming and youth interest in commercial motorcycle business first, second and third respectively. Stakeholders identified during Focus Group Discussion (FGD) included STCP/IITA, SOCCODEVI and ADP. STCP/IITA and ADP were however the closest to the cocoa farming community. The study concluded that there are constraints discouraging youth involvement in cocoa farming. Hence, to ensure good succession plans, the study recommended that all stakeholders must make effort to address the various constraints identified by respondents