Abstract:
The large income from petroleum export led to a depression of local food production and the deteriorating conditions in the rural areas of Nigeria. Unfortunately attempts to revamp the near moribund agricultural sector by massive investment of the oil revenue have not been successful. The cornerstone of the country’s agricultural policy is the World Bank assisted and small holder oriented Agricultural Development projects . These projects are expected to cover the whole country, one for each of the nineteen states. The projects are designed to improve rural life through transformation of the production system, institutional reforms, and the installation of basic social and physical infrastructures, Bida ADP is therefore used as a case study with a view to understanding the political , social and economic ramifications of this particuler interventionist strategy in small scale agriculture. Despite the huge amount of money spent on these project, defective project design, political interference in their implementation, the lack of administrative capacity and inadequate participatory role for majority of the small holder peasants have combined to adversely affect their impact. In our analysis, collected data based on production figures that were supplied by the project,s management, questionnaire and interviews showed that the projects have not led to any dramatic increase in crop production. In fact, in some ADPS l i k e Funtua, yields of some crops had actually dropped Furthermore, rural differentiation is being exacerbated by selection of a few r i c h peasants who are termed “progressives” as direct beneficiaries of the projects. Agricultural production units are breaking down gradually because the projects do not pay adequate attention to the important role of womer and the youths in the production process.
RURAL DEVELOPMENT THROUGH WORLD BANK-ASSISTED PROJECT: A CASE STUDY OF BIDA AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT.
