The study aimed at assessing rural youth participation in agriculture, their access to production resources and services and the effects of youths' access to inputs and services on farm productivity and youths' welfare. The study was conducted in three states (each randomly selected from the three agro-ecological zones of northern Nigeria). Two Local Government Areas (LGAs) with high agricultural potential were randomly selected from each state. Because of the similarity in physical and socio-economic characteristics of rural communities, three villages were randomly selected from each LGA, and six youths from each village. Thus three states, six LGAs, 18 villages and 108 rural youths were the sample frame for the study. Data were collected using a questionnaire and were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The study revealed that 79% of rural youths were involved in agricultural activities for subsistence and sale. Over 62% of youths earned between N10,000.00ÁN50,000.00 per annum ($68.96Á$344.82) from agricultural activities. Only 2.8% of youths reported that inputs were readily available in their communities. According to the youths, marketing of farm produce was associated with numerous problems, including low prices (59.3%), bad road network (37%) and poor/lack of storage facilities (13%). In spite of these challenges, youths have assets such as good literacy levels (50%) and access to agricultural information among others. In terms of food security, 70% of youths reported that they had adequate stock of food to feed on throughout the year, while 30% said they did not have enough stock for the year, leading to hunger. The implication of the findings is that youths should be given the necessary orientation/training on agricultural production, which should be backed up with production resources and services to enable the youths to embark on agricultural activities in a sustainable manner.
Notwithstanding the emergent indications and fears about the effect of cybercrime, only a few speculative studies have explored the topic to complement those published by consultancy firms, cybersecurity companies, and private institutions. The review of all these studies shows that there is no consensus on how to delineate and measure cybercrime or its effect on Small and Medium Scale Enterprises. Against this background, this research paper had four objectives namely to: determine the effect of Cybercrime on Small and Medium Scale Businesses; identify the real cost of Cybercrime to Ghana SMEs; identify the reasons for the increase of cybercrimes in Ghana SMEs and; identify the causes of cybercrime in Ghana SMEs. A cross-sectional study is used to assess the burden of cost or IT needs of a population and are particularly useful in informing the planning and allocation of IT resources. The study consists of forty-nine (49) participants. The target population is small and medium enterprises in Ghana. Simple random sampling was used to recruit and select the study respondents. As the name implies, simple random sampling means that, in this case, small and medium enterprises in Ghana will be chosen entirely by chance, and each of these enterprises in Ghana has an equal chance or probability of being selected. Furthermore, eight small and medium enterprises in Ghana were involved. And these SMEs include businesses that buy and sell, transportation companies, etc. The findings of the research confirmed the assumptions put forward since there were statistically significant variations in the proportion of people who participated in cybercrime activities based on their age and the size of the business in which they worked.
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