Youth Commercial Agricultural Development Programme and Unemployment Reduction in Ekiti State (2017-2021)

Abstract

The research focused on unemployment and how the Ekiti State Youth Commercial Agricultural Development (YCAD) program has helped in curbing it. The work aimed at determining the effect of YCAD empowerment programme on unemployment reduction in the state and ascertaining the effect of agricultural incentives on unemployment reduction in Ekiti State. The Systems theory propounded by David Easton was used as the theoretical framework. Questionnaire was used as the primary method for data collection while the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) on SmartPLS3 software was used to run a number of statistical tests on the acquired data and results showed that agricultural incentives have a positive and significant impact on unemployment in Ekiti State. In light of this, the study suggested that more agricultural incentives be made available to everyone, not only the privileged few.