Effectiveness Of Developed Groundnut Production Package In Training Youths For Employment And Food Security In South East Nigeria
EGBO B N
Department of Agricultural Education, College of Education (Technical) Enugu
NWANKWO C U
Department of Agricultural Education, University of Nigeria Nsukka
IFEANYEZE F O
Department of Agricultural Education, University of Nigeria Nsukka
Keywords: youths, groundnut, employment, effectiveness
Abstract
Food security has been a problem in the Country, as most Nigerians live below the recommended food intake of one dollar per day. Youths in South East Nigeria find it difficult to be employed in groundnut production, although they are expected to have acquired the production skills in this direction while in school. An interaction of the researchers with some teachers of Agricultural science in the study area, revealed that, there are absence of land for practical and practical textbooks for use in this direction, hence most graduates were taught theoretically despite the request of the curriculum to grow crops prevalent in the area. To solve the problem, this study determined the effectiveness of developed groundnut production package in training of youths for employment and food security in South East Nigeria. Specifically, the study determined the efficacy of the package in establishment and post planting operations in groundnut for training of youth. Two research questions with corresponding hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted one-group pretest-posttest design on a population of 21,909,782 unemployed youths in South East Nigeria. Incidental sampling technique was used to select 85 respondents consisting of 50 female and 35 male. The instrument for data collection was 55 rating scale items developed from the groundnut production package. The instrument was face and content validated by three experts. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Kuder Richardson method and a coefficient of 0.85 was obtained. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation for research questions, while analysis of variance ANOVA was used to test the null hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed among others that groundnut production package was effective in training youths. Based on the findings it was recommended that groundnut production package should be used in training youths in other area to enhance food security