Young People's Aspirations in Agriculture: A Case Study of Ghana's Cocoa Sector

Abstract

Our paper1 considers the question of young people‘s aspirations in agriculture in light of the renewed interest in the agricultural sector as a viable basis for development in sub-Saharan Africa and the perception that young people‘s involvement is important for the success of this project. Life choices and outcomes are affected in part by aspirations. The nature and formation of young people‘s aspirations therefore have direct implications for emerging visions and future models of agriculture to the extent that young people‘s aspirations inform the choices they make in regards to agriculture. Recent research presents aspiration formation as a dynamic process, developing within and influenced by the context in which a person lives. This context encompasses personal beliefs, societal expectations, educational and other life opportunities and constraints, among many others. The literature presents two main ways of conceptualising aspirations. First are concepts of aspirations that embody some component of reality: that is, what people expect to achieve (see MacBrayne, 1987). Second are aspirations as ‗hopes and dreams‘ and thus distinct from expectations rooted in reality (Morrison Guterman and Akerman, 2008; Quaglia and Cobb, 1996, among others. See Leavy and Smith, 2010, for a review). Our study took a broad view of aspirations, asking young people in rural Ghana what they want to do in the future and whether cocoa farming would feature in those plans. Some plans were immediate and realistic (for example, farming now to get money to learn a trade), while others were long-term and perhaps less likely for our sample of young people (for example, obtaining a university degree and subsequently securing a white collar job).