International Journal of Agriculture Extension and Social Development

author(s)
Jabez Moyo, Zororo Muranda and Desderio M Chavunduka

abstract
This study determined the extent to which the change in the demographics of the farmers in Zimbabwe from 1980 has had an influence on agricultural performance. We adopted a sample size of 384 farmers from a population of more than 1,500,000 farmers. Descriptive statistics were used to determine the relationship between demographic characteristics and agricultural performance. 30.5 per cent of the farmers were communal, down from 70 per cent pre -1980. Thus leaving 69.5 per cent under commercial farming and 52.6 per cent were the 25-59 age group, with farms run by family units at 99.5 per cent. The literacy level was 99.7 per cent. There was no statistically significant difference in the farmers agricultural performance margins between the farm classification, ?^2 (2)= 2.678, p > 0.05. On provinces, there was a statistically significant difference in the agricultural performance, ?^2 (7)= 67.101, p < 0.05. Governments can enact youth farmer training and support programs to ensure capacity building and improved agricultural performance. The importance of demographic characteristics on the adoption of entrepreneurial competences and agricultural performance is brought to clarity by this study. The theoretical framework from this study can be adopted to select and recruit youth potential farmers for training and support in spearheading cluster specialist food security initiatives.