CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Agriculture has been the main stay of Nigerian economy before the Nigeria independence until the era of oil boom. Statistics show that in 1963/64 agriculture provided about 50% of the Gross National Product (GNP) and 88% of the country’s basic foreign exchange earner of crops like palm oil, palm kernels, cocoa, cotton, groundnut, cereal, woods as raw material for their industries. Although after independence a gradual drift in cities in search of white-collar jobs began and this handicapped the agricultural sector, which lead to a serious decline in agricultural produce, compounding this problem is the oil euphoria, which added more impetus to population drift and neglect thereby leading to Nigeria’s loss of agricultural manpower.
Nigeria quickly turned from a food exporting country with bill accounting for 18% in 1979 and more than 26% in 1983. Total import bill at this rate compared with 8.5% in 1971 was a sign of total collapse of the agricultural sector. It is in realization of the importance of agriculture in overall economic growth and development of any nation that various Nigerian governments (military and civilian administration) decided to take a bold and realistic step to bring agriculture back to its position of prominence in the national economy.