Effect Of The National Programme On Food Security On Food Production
[A CASE STUDY OF ANAMBRA STATE]

The ADP system has made some remarkable success in agriculture. Some of its achievements are as follows.
1.    Programme Continuity: The ADP has survived various governments with differing political inclinations. This is a huge success. Having existed for more than two decades, it is easily noticed that the ADP is one government programme that has defied the “discontinuity syndrome” that characterise various government programmes in Nigeria.
2.    Revitalised Extension Service: The ADP system has made tremendous progress in improving extension service in Nigeria. According to Patel (1989) and Oyaide (1992) Extension Agent – Farmer ratio has improved from pre-ADP level of 1:3000 to a national average of 1:800. The number of farm families reached have increased from 2.8 million in 1986 to about 9.1 million in 1990 (Owona, 1992)
3.    Local Capacity: The ADP system has also made impressive achievement in capacity building of local manpower base. By 1988 as stated by Oyaide (1992) over 4,750 Nigerians had been trained locally or overseas by the ADPs. Indeed local capacity for management and implementation support of the ADPs has been on the increase over the years (Owona, 1992), hence it is easily noticed that expatriate staff are virtually non- existent in management of ADPs. Farmers and local artisans have also benefited extensively in the training programme of the ADPs.
4.    Rural Infrastructure Development: The achievement of ADPs in the area of rural infrastructure have been very outstanding especially with
respect to feeder roads. According to Kwa (1992) most ADPs exceeded their targets on road construction and maintenance.
5.    Input Distribution: The ADPs also supplies inputs like fertilizers, herbicides, improved seedlings and so on.
6.    Technology Development, Transfer and Adoption: The ADPs have made some noticeable advances in technology development through On- Farm adaptive trials and transfer of the results to rural dwellers.
7.    Impact of ADPs Achievement on Rural Farmers: The ultimate objective of the ADP system is to raise productivity, increase farm output, income and standard of living of the rural farmers. Therefore, the impact of the achievements of the ADPs on the farmers can only be measured in such terms.
Oyaide (1992) reported that in 1985, about 9 million tonnes grain equivalent, representing 44% total food production that year was produced by farmers involved in the programme.
The River Basin Authorities (RBAs) was launched to tap the full potentials of the country’s agriculture through the development of the water resources and the involvement of all categories of the people. The RBAs carried out such projects as food crop production, livestock and cattle production, agricultural loan scheme and irrigation.
Most of the above attempts made at achieving self-sufficiency in food production did not record much success. Most of them failed, others phased out. In June 2009, Newswatch organised a colloquium on Agriculture and Food Crisis in Nigeria. At the colloquium Dupe Olatubosun and Francis Idachaba, two of Nigeria’s foremost Professors of Agricultural Economics, submitted that the policies (OFN, the Green Revolution and National Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme, and DFRRI) failed due to poor leadership and poor articulation. Olatubosun pointed out that They failed because of greed and interest of the elite that were not geared towards agricultural development.
According to Idachaba, the programmes were abandoned because they were not achieving the objectives for which they were set up and because the benefits flowed to non-intended beneficiaries with unintended consequences. He went further to say that it did not take much time before stakeholders realised that those programmes did not have any basis for sustainability and therefore the political support was lost as soon as regimes changed. He went further to say that under OFN, everybody was expected to be a farmer which in reality is not possible, that even in leading agricultural countries, there is division of labour such that some are farmers while others take to different professions. He told Newswatch that Because of this wrong conceptualisation, OFN was not something that could really last long.
The Vice Chancellor emeritus, Kogi State University, Anyigba, identified lack of continuity and shift in approach by successive governments for the failure of OFN and Green Revolution while he said that DFRRI failed due to lack of funds and commitment. He went further to point out that the infrastructural programmes were embarked upon without effective programme of action and appropriate institutional arrangements for the execution.
Ogaranye Tabowei, Delta State commissioner for agriculture in his paper titled Agriculture and Food Crises in Nigeria also presented at the colloquium blamed the failure of the policies (OFN, the Green Revolution and National Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme, and DFRRI) on policy inconsistency and dislocation of administrative functions of government, weak and inadequate funding, duplication of services and inability to pay subsisting market prices.
He also identified other factors such as funding, decline in oil prices and erratic input supplies such as fertilisers, agro-chemicals etc.