An Understanding of the Agripreneurial Knowledge and Motivation among Gambian Young Agripreneurs

Agripreneurship is a new buzzword in the discourse on economic development. It is a new global idea aiming to change agriculture from a subsistence sector to a competitive business. The primary objective of this study is to document the level of knowledge of young agripreneurs. The study also assesses factors that stimulated their interest in initiating agribusiness ventures in The Gambia. To achieve this, survey data were collected from 384 young agripreneurs using a self-administered questionnaire in five agricultural zones in the Gambia. Data were analyzed using descriptive factor and k-mean cluster analyses. The findings indicated that the respondents had a medium knowledge of all agripreneurial behavioral components used in the study. Based on the push-pull anchor framework, we found that young agripreneurs about family misfortune, lack of job opportunities, dismissal from the previous job, poverty (push factors), low financial status, economic independence and the pursuit of self-actualization (push factors), opportunities in agriculture and the encouragement from the government (mooring factors) all play a significant role in the motivation to pursue agripreneurship. Furthermore, the results of the cluster analysis revealed four distinct groups of young farmers: ambitious agripreneurs, financial reward seekers, agribusiness lovers, and social protectors.  Kruskal Wallis and post hoc tests indicated statistically significant differences between groupings. These findings suggest that for policymakers to understand the potential of the agripreneurship sector, it is a need to pay close attention to the level of knowledge and motivations of agripreneurs in order to design appropriate policies for greater participation of youth in agripreneurship. Implications for theory, as well as limitations and potential future directions, were discussed.