CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND
The agricultural sector has a multiplier effect on any nation’s socio-economic and industrial fabric because of its multifunctional nature. A strong and efficient agricultural sector would enable a country to feed its growing population, generate employment, earn foreign exchange and provide raw materials for industries. The agricultural sector has the potential to be the industrial and economic springboard from which a country’s development can take off, (Chude, 1989:28). Indeed, more often than not, agricultural activities are usually concentrated in the less-developed rural areas where there is a critical need for rural transformation, redistribution, poverty alleviation and socio-economic development. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants (i.e. crops) creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science. Agriculture is also observed in certain species of ant and termite.
Agriculture encompasses a wide variety of specialties and techniques, including ways to expand the lands suitable for plant rising, by digging water-channels and other forms of irrigation. Cultivation of crops on arable land and the pastoral herding of livestock on rangeland remain at the foundation of agriculture. In the past century there has been increasing concern to identify and quantify various forms of agriculture. In the developed world the range usually extends between sustainable agriculture (e.g. perm culture or organic agriculture) and intensive farming (e.g. industrial agriculture).
In Nigeria, during the early post independence
days (1960 – 1970) before the discovery of oil, agriculture served as the engine of growth of the overall Nigerian economy, (Chude, 1989:28). From the standpoint of occupational distribution and contribution to the GDP, agriculture was the leading sector. During this period Nigeria was the world’s second largest producer of cocoa, largest exporter of palm kernel and largest producer and exporter of palm oil. Nigeria was also a leading exporter of other major commodities such as cotton, groundnut, rubber and hides and skins, (Adeniyi, 1991:16). The agricultural sector contributed over 60 per cent of the GDP in the 1960s and despite the reliance of Nigerian peasant farmers on traditional tools and indigenous farming methods, These farmers produced 70 per cent of Nigeria’s exports and 95 per cent of its food needs, (FAO, Summary of World Food and Agricultural Statistics 2003, Rome 2004:46-47).