Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
In my last weblog post, we discussed the rationale behind the quest of developing countries,
Nigeria inclusive, to attain sustainable economic development through economic
development planning driven through industrial and agriculture policies and programmes.
Specifically, industrial economic development policies in Nigeria were discussed in the last
post. We shall be dwelling more on agriculture development policies put in place in the
various economic development plans in the country.
We shall consequently be concluding by advancing reasons why these plans had not achieved
their objective of economic diversification and sustainable development in Nigeria.
Nigerias perception of the place and role of agriculture in national development changed
considerably over time. Different strategies adopted by the country shows dynamism and
changing strategies that overlaps and cannot be appropriately isolated into specific time
period.
Often it was a combination of two or more strategies to implement agricultural development
policies designed at different Nigeria national development plans.
In order to revamp the agriculture sector, the federal government had embarked on and
implemented several agriculture development policies and programmes; some of which are
defunct or abandoned, and some restructured while others are still in place.
These agriculture policies and programmes include the farm settlement scheme, National
Accelerated Food Production (NAFPP), Agricultural Development Projects (ADPs), River Basin
Development Authorities (RBDAs), National Seed Service (NSS), National Centre for
Agricultural Mechanisation (NCAM), Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute
(ARMTI) and Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF).
Others were the Nigerian Agricultural Cooperative And Rural Development Bank
(NACRDB)/agricultural bank, Operation Feed the Nation (OFN), Green Revolution Programme,
Directorate Of Foods, Roads And Rural Infrastructure (DFFRI), Nigerian agricultural insurance
company (NAIC), National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA), Specialised
Universities for Agriculture, Root and Tuber Expansion Programme (RTEP) and rural banking
scheme, etc (Salami, 2007)
Furthermore, the Federal Government in 2004 launched another economic reform called
National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) programme. In the
agricultural sector, NEEDS were directed to influence improvement in the production,
processing and distribution of agricultural commodities. Despite all the aforementioned
reform policies and programmes, the performance of the sector had not fared better than it
was shortly after Nigeria independence.
According to Olayemi (1998) agricultural development strategies that have been adopted in
the Nigeria can be categorised into the exploitative strategies, the agricultural project
strategy, the direct government production strategy and the integrated rural development
strategy.
The good relationship and peaceful atmosphere will always ensure success of agricultural
policies and programme and consequent agricultural development.
e. Inadequate monitoring and evaluation of programmes: Evaluation is purposely
done to determine achievements of rural/agriculture development programmes vis-a-vis the
set policy objectives.
Evaluation techniques can serve to improve implementation and efficiency of agriculture
development programmes after interventions have begun, provide evidence as to the cost
efficiency and impact of a specific intervention within and between policy sectors (FAO, 2004).
Conclusion
The past national agriculture development policies/programmes have failed to improve
standard of living of millions of Nigeria and economic development of the country.
To realize the objective of sustainable economic development in Nigeria, the reasons
enumerated here as responsible for the failure of agriculture development
policies/programmes in Nigeria need to be address, else every good policy prescription
designed for implementation will result to failure.
References
Adubi AA (2004). Agriculture: Its performance, problems and prospects.
Democratic Government
Development. In Bello Imam I. B. and M. I. Obadan (Ed). Management in Nigerias Fourth
Republic 19992003 CLGARDS, 2004.
Egwu WE, and Akubuilo CJC (2007). Agricultural Policy, Development and Implementation
in Agricultural Economics and Extension.
Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), (2004). TheEthics of Sustainable
AgriculturalIntensification. FAO Rome, Italy (www/fao,org: Editional Production and Design
Group Publishing Management).
Olayemi JK (1998). Agricultural Development Strategy: Institutional Framework and
Support, Paper presented at the workshop on Policy Issues and Planning in the
Agricultural Sector, NCEMA, June 15-26, 1998.