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Structures of Intermediation and Change in African Agriculture: A Nigerian Case Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Dickson L. Eyoh
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In the mid-1970s the Nigerian state embarked on an ambitious program to accelerate the commercialization of peasant food production systems, employing as the main institutional vehicle Agricultural Development Projects (ADPs) which are designed, partially funded and managed by the World Bank. The core components of ADPs are their Crop Development Programs which are directed at increasing crop yields and farm incomes through the dissemination of heavily subsidized Green Revolution-type technologies: crop production packages that are comprised of improved seed varieties, fertilizer, pesticides and tractor services. With this objective, a number of infrastructural supports (the most important of which are the expansion and maintenance of rural roads, networks of Farm Service Centers for input delivery, intensified extension services and soil conservation measures) are undertaken by the projects. Commencing with three pilot projects in Bauchi, Kaduna and Sokoto states, the program was extended to the Middle Belts states of Benue, Niger and Plateau in 1977. Declaring ADPs the cornerstone of the national Green Revolution in 1980, the federal government decided to establish projects in all states. The nationwide program was expected to encompass over three million farm families by the mid-1980s (Nigeria 1982).

Inquiries conducted within neo-Marxian political economy frameworks concerning the direction of agrarian transition which the Nigerian state seeks to foster through ADPs have revolved around a well-founded suspicion of their purported smallholder focus. Their design is premised on a division of rural communities into large, progressive and traditional farmers.

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , April 1992 , pp. 17 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1992

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