THE NIGERIAN STATE AND AGRICULTURAL INTERVENTION: EXPERIENCES IN ANAMBRA STATE, 1976-1991

Abstract

The food problem in Nigeria prompted the federal government to create programmes that could buoy agricultural production and address the challenges it posed. This paper discusses these programmes in Anambra State, Nigeria, between 1976 and 1991, with a view to ascertain the extent they individually and collectively contributed to the growth of agriculture in the state. This is informed by the consideration that a thorough, in-depth and dispassionate assessment of these programmes could best be achieved by evaluating their performance in the states of the federation. There exists a plethora of studies on the federal government’s programmes on agriculture. Such studies discuss the strengths, weaknesses, successes, failures and extent of goal attainment of these programmes without recourse to definite geo-political context or focus on a programme in a particular state of the federation, without a time perspective thereby presenting an incomplete, fractured and dim picture of the subject. The present study marks a departure from this trend. It attempts to present a complete and holistic assessment of these programmes by studying them from a time perspective and within a geopolitical/administrative context. Data for this paper are derived from primary and secondary sources. It combines qualitative and quantitative methods of research and is guided in its analysis and conclusion by the supremacy of facts over theories in historical discourses. Based on the available evidence, it is the contention of this paper that the programmes had varying degrees of goal attainment. On the whole, however, they did not significantly foster the growth of agriculture in Anambra State when viewed against the financial and human resources committed to them and the media hype they received.