{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/98168"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/98168","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Building capacity of rural youth and extension workers in agriculture as a business: evidence from a field experiment in Malawi","abstract":"This thesis examines the effects of agri-business entrepreneurship training on the business skills, entrepreneurial propensity, and expected wages of youth in rural Malawi. Historically, the role of youth in agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa has been severely limited due to a variety of political, social, and economic factors. In general, youth have limited access to land, capital, political influence, and agricultural inputs, which are often controlled by governments, private industry, or village elders. This project implemented a learning program in the East Lilongwe district testing the effects of a 10 week agricultural entrepreneurship course that attempted to equip youth with the skills necessary to start a low cost business. Participants were selected in groups at the village level, and by completion of the course expected to have formed a semi-formal business plan. Increasing rural youth’s entrepreneurial knowledge and expectations about the viability and wages of agricultural employment will be a crucial factor in incentivizing extension systems to adopt sustainable training practices as a means of advisory service.","abstract_html":"This thesis examines the effects of agri-business entrepreneurship training on the business skills, entrepreneurial propensity, and expected wages of youth in rural Malawi. Historically, the role of youth in agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa has been severely limited due to a variety of political, social, and economic factors. In general, youth have limited access to land, capital, political influence, and agricultural inputs, which are often controlled by governments, private industry, or village elders. This project implemented a learning program in the East Lilongwe district testing the effects of a 10 week agricultural entrepreneurship course that attempted to equip youth with the skills necessary to start a low cost business. Participants were selected in groups at the village level, and by completion of the course expected to have formed a semi-formal business plan. Increasing rural youth’s entrepreneurial knowledge and expectations about the viability and wages of agricultural employment will be a crucial factor in incentivizing extension systems to adopt sustainable training practices as a means of advisory service.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Highfill, Ryan Joseph"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.S.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Agricultural & Applied Econ","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["McNamara, Paul E.","Ellison, Brenna","Crost, Benjamin"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2017,"date_issued":"2017-09-29T17:45:41Z","date_published":"2017-09-29T17:45:41Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:35Z","subjects":["Agribusiness","Extension","Malawi"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Copyright 2017 Ryan Highfill"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/98168","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["McNamara, Paul E.","Ellison, Brenna","Crost, Benjamin"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Highfill, Ryan Joseph"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2017-09-29T17:45:41Z","2020-03-03T10:15:38Z","2017-06-16","2017-08"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Agricultural & Applied Econ"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.S."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Agribusiness","Extension","Malawi"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2017 Ryan Highfill"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/98168"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["This thesis examines the effects of agri-business entrepreneurship training on the business skills, entrepreneurial propensity, and expected wages of youth in rural Malawi. 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Increasing rural youth’s entrepreneurial knowledge and expectations about the viability and wages of agricultural employment will be a crucial factor in incentivizing extension systems to adopt sustainable training practices as a means of advisory service.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2019-08-01","The student, Ryan Highfill, accepted the attached license on 2017-06-15 at 10:01.","The student, Ryan Highfill, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2017-06-15 at 10:04.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2017-06-16 at 12:51.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #11225 on 2017-09-29 at 10:45:52","Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-29T17:45:41Z (GMT). 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Increasing rural youth’s entrepreneurial knowledge and expectations about the viability and wages of agricultural employment will be a crucial factor in incentivizing extension systems to adopt sustainable training practices as a means of advisory service.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2019-08-01","The student, Ryan Highfill, accepted the attached license on 2017-06-15 at 10:01.","The student, Ryan Highfill, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2017-06-15 at 10:04.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2017-06-16 at 12:51.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #11225 on 2017-09-29 at 10:45:52","Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-29T17:45:41Z (GMT). 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