One of the major factors that aids in economic growth, sustainability, and poverty reduction of a developing nation is agriculture. With the passage of time, contribution of agriculture in GDP seems decreasing and youths' involvement towards agricultural entrepreneurship has been increasing in Nepal. Agro-entrepreneurship is rising due to technological innovation and transformation in production process that will provide higher output aiding in income generation. This study aims to identify youths' willingness to accept agriculture entrepreneurship and provincial role for its development. This study is based on explanatory research design with 324 samples from farmers of Bedkot municipality. Both primary and secondary data are used for the study based on a structured questionnaire. Tobit model has been used to generate results, along with several variables based on descriptive and inferential analysis. The study depicts that agriculture information has positive significance with overall awareness of youths' willingness to accept agriculture entrepreneurship. Likewise, youths' acceptance of agro-entrepreneurship is significant to annual income, land size, market information centre (MIC) as well. Training and awareness of agricultural entrepreneurship need to be focused more by policy-makers. This is one of the first investigations conducted to identify the various dimensions of youths' willingness to accept agriculture entrepreneurship in the Nepalese context.

PurposeAgriculture, since time immemorial, has been a major sector in reducing poverty, accelerating economic activities and source of sustainability of a nation. As most of the youth in the 21st century are targeting the youth's career in the non-agricultural sector, attracting and involving the youths in agribusinesses is the need of the hour. In this regard, the research tries to understand the awareness and involvement of youth farmers in agripreneurship in Western Nepal.Design/methodology/approachUsing a structured questionnaire, data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. On the basis of descriptive and inferential analysis, the ordered logit model is employed in the study. The research is based on explanatory research design through identifying farmers' awareness of agriculture entrepreneurship from 324 farmers of Bedkot Municipality, Kanchanpur, Nepal.FindingsStudy findings have shown that agricultural knowledge with overall awareness is statistically significant. Ordered logistic regression indicated that sex has somehow influenced technical and entrepreneur skills while agriculture information highly influenced education and training. The result shows that agricultural training is still the requirement of one-fourth of the farmers, whereas another quarter of farmers need subsidies.Research limitations/implicationsThe study suggests that in order to enhance awareness, training, subsidy, market management and development program are widely needed. In the backdrop of declining agro-products and food security challenges, the study targets to offer an understanding to policymakers and stakeholders on addressing the dire need of agripreneurship among the youths around the world.Originality/valueThe study summarizes the state of knowledge of agripreneurship of Nepalese farmers, identifies emerging issues and policy implications and priorities for future applied research.

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