Over the past years, the government of Eswatini has come up with a number of interventions to provide financial assistance to smallholder farmers, including start-up funds for youth, to ensure food security and independence within the country. Despite the efforts, vegetable production in Eswatini has remained low over the years, leading to increasing importation of vegetables from mainly South Africa to meet the national demand. Youth Enterprise Fund is among government’s interventions to stimulate increased productivity of agriculture produce, including vegetable, as an alternative for import substitution. This study was aimed at assessing the cabbage productivity of the youth farmers benefiting from the Youth Enterprise Fund program in Eswatini. A Sample of 80 farmers were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. The results of this study indicated that the majority of farmers are females and most of the beneficiary farmers are single, while the majority of the non-beneficiary farmers are married. Farmers from both groups had 6-10 household members, attained high school education, had agricultural training and advisory services during their farming period. Study revealed that there was a mean difference between cabbage yield of 173 cabbage heads/ha between beneficiary farmers and non-beneficiary farmer, although the difference was statistically insignificant. Logistic regression results indicate that the determinants of choosing to participate in the YEF program were age, household size, land size, fertilizer amount and labour. Multiple linear regressions were used to determine the factors affecting cabbage production. The findings of the study indicate that determinants of cabbage production among YEF beneficiaries were gender, land size, farming experience and fertilizer amount, while determinants of cabbage production for non-beneficiaries were gender, level of education, farm size, farming experience and fertilizer amount. The results suggest that the YEF program has a positive effect on cabbage productivity among youth farmers, and is recommended that the government continue increasing the number of beneficiaries, and the youth farmers are encouraged to join. To attract youth farmers to join the program there is a need to improve on access to land, access to fertilizer and access to more labour-saving technologies, in addition to trainings provided by YEF-program.   

Keywords: Productivity, Cabbage smallholder farmers, Youth Enterprise Fund