Differentiated Analysis of the Occupational Integration of Engineer Graduates from the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the University of Abomey-Calavi into Agricultural Entrepreneurship between 1980 and 2020

Abstract

Unemployment, underemployment, and overemployment are issues affecting graduate, undergraduate, and non-graduate young people in both developed and developing countries in the world. Agricultural entrepreneurship is among the most important employment alternatives proposed to young people, particularly in developing countries. Agricultural engineer graduates are among the people exposed to employment issues, so one would expect them to be mostly represented in agricultural entrepreneurship, given that they are agricultural specialists. This paper fills the knowledge gap about the extent to which agricultural engineer graduates occupationally integrate agricultural entrepreneurship in developing countries, especially in the Republic of Benin. The study focused on the period of 1980 to 2020 and on the engineer graduates from the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences (FSA) of the University of Abomey-Calavi, the oldest and the still most important high agricultural engineering education faculty of Benin. 510 agricultural engineer graduates from this faculty were surveyed via emails, phone calls, and face-to-face interviews. The gender and occupational integration data collected underwent frequency and percentage calculations, and the findings are presented in graphs and tables. Findings highlight that only about 1.8% of female and 6% of male agricultural engineer graduates of the studied faculty integrated agricultural entrepreneurship over the study period. 1.37% of other engineers tried out agricultural entrepreneurship before abandoning it. Thus, agricultural entrepreneurship is not yet an important employment solution for agricultural engineer graduates in Benin. Further conditions may be proposed to attract these professional graduates, whose presence in agricultural entrepreneurship could add more value to the quality and quantity of agricultural food supplied to consumers.