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The Impact Of Agricultural Development On Nigeria Economic Growth
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However, the 1967 – 1970 Civil War in Nigeria coincided with the ‘Oil
Boom’ era, which resulted in extensive exploration and export of
petroleum and its products. This led Nigeria to neglect its strong
agriculture in favour of an unhealthy dependence on oil (United States
Department of State, 2005). Ever since then, Nigeria has been
witnessing extreme poverty and insufficiency of basic food items. The
agricultural sector contributions now account for less than 5% of
Nigeria’s GDP (Olagbaju and Fashola, 1996: 263). It is against this
back drop that we set out to research on the impact of agricultural
development on Nigeria economic growth.
As noted earlier, the neglect
of the agricultural sector and the dependence of Nigeria on a
mono-cultural crude oil based economy had not augured well for the
well-being of the Nigerian economy. In a bid to address this drift, the
Nigerian government as from 1975 became directly involved in the
commercial production of food and cash crops.
Several large scale
agricultural projects specializing in the production of grains,
livestock, dairies and animal feeds, to mention but a few, were
established (Fasipe, 1990: 129-130). Sugar factories were also
established at Numan, Lafiagi and sunti (Lawal, 1997: 196).
The
Nigerian Agricultural and Co-operative Bank (NACB) was established in
1973 as part of government’s effort to invest oil wealth into the
agricultural sector through the provision of credit facilities to
support agriculture and agro-allied businesses (Olagunju, 2000: 90). By
1995 the bank had granted the sum of $3,179.6 million as loan to the
Private Sector.
The River Basin Development Authorities (RBDA) were
conceived in 1963 and were to cater for the development of land and
mineral resources potentials of Nigeria.
Operation Feed The Nation (OFN) was commissioned in the 1970s with the main objectives of:
Mobilizing the nation towards self sufficiency and self reliance in food.
Encouraging the sector of population which relies on buying food to growing its own food.
Encouraging general pride in agriculture through the realization that a nation which cannot feed itself, cannot be proud etc.
The
OFN which was launched in 1976 to generate public awareness of the
importance of agriculture to national development, and mobilize both
rural and urban dwellers to participate in agriculture, be it in
conventional crop farms, fish farms, backyard gardens or poultry did not
realize the objectives of reducing or eliminating food imports and
achieving self-sufficiency so in 1980 it was replaced with the Green
Revolution Programme.
- The Green Revolution; This was a more
deliberate and calculated approach to the food production problem. The
programme was followed by the mounting of food strategies mission for
Nigeria by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, which estimated the
level of food production needed to achieve self-sufficiency. Much of
the recommendations of the programme, such as the expansion of the
Integrated Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) to cover all States
of the Federation, support for artisanal fishers and aquaculture and the
establishment of grain storage facilities, among others, are still
being implemented.
- The Directorate of Food, Roads And Rural
Infrastructure (DFRI): This was established by the Federal Military
Government in 1986 and was intended to bring development to the rural
areas where over 70% of the population reside and work principally as
farmers. The mandate given to DFRI is as follows:
To improve the quality of life and standard of living of the people in the rural areas.
To
use the enormous resources of the rural areas to lay a solid foundation
for the security, socio-economic growth and development activities of
the rural areas to those of the Local Government Areas; the States and
the Federal Government.
To ensure a deeply rooted and self-sustaining development process based on effectively mobilized mass participation.
In
spite of all these efforts, it is heartrending to note that as from the
mid 70s, Nigeria became a net importer of various agricultural
products. In 1982 alone, Nigeria imported 153,000mt tons of palm oil at
the cost of 92 million USD and 55,000mt tons of cotton valued at 92
million USD (Alkali, 1997:10). Between 1973 and 1980, a total of
7.07million tons of wheat, 1.62 million tons of rice and 431,000 tons of
maize were imported.
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