A Critical Review of Rural Agricultural Development Innovative Programmes in Nigeria

Abstract

Samuel Olabode Adeyemi, Samson Olayemi Sennuga, Funso O. Alabuja, Joseph Bamidele, Adebisi Olateju Omole, Bankole Osho-Lagunju and Mary E. Iheonu

This review is to examine the different Agricultural development innovative programmes in Nigeria and the factors that led to their failure. In the last decade, poverty and malnutrition still remain the major challenges of most of the countries in the Sub-Sa- haran Africa despite the significant efforts that successive Government had made, example is the case in Nigeria. With reference to the estimates from experts in 2010, the unabated rising cost of food in the sub-saharan Africa had resulted to increase in the population of poor people who mostly resides in the rural areas to about 44 million. It has also been established that, adoption of innovation is the only way to go if the problems of poverty and malnutrition is to surmounted because, increase in Agricultural productivity will translate to an increase in the availability of food most especially in the rural areas where over 80% of Africa’s population resides and where these foods are largely produced by the smallholder rural farmers. The projection that the global population will reach 9 billion by 2050 is enough to create fears in mankind especially the under developed countries in the sub-saharan Africa like Nigeria due to the failures of all the efforts by their Government to solve the problems of poverty and malnutrition in the rural areas through the different developmental innovative programmes that have been implemented. Some of these developmental innovative programmes are the River Basin Development Authorities (RBDA), Operation Feed the Nation (OFN), The Green Revolution Programme (GR), Directorate for Food Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI), Better Life Pro- gramme (BLP), National Special Programme on Food Security (NSPFS) and Root and Tuber Expansion Programme (RTEP).

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