Post by Trade Coach on Jan 13, 2020 21:44:09 GMT 1
Agricultural policies in Nigeria have undergone changes over the years. There have been metamorphosis at several stages of the nation's development starting from the colonial era to the post colonial era of 1963. During the early part of the post colonial era, the country had a policy based on surplus extraction, which was later transformed to an export-led policy, that brought about an improvement in the economy of the nation.
The western region was exporting cocoa, the northern region was exporting groundnut, while the southeastern region was known for oil palm export. Although, the government has not really made convincing efforts to implement many of its rules and policies on agriculture, we have highlighted below, some of Nigeria's Agricultural Policies:
- Attainment of complete self-sufficiency in all basic food products placing emphasis on those foods that takes up a good chunk of Nigerians foreign exchange, like rice.
- Increase in quantity of agricultural-related raw materials produced to make them adequate for the industrial sector and remove the need for importation of such raw materials.
- Increase in the quantity of exportable products being produced in an attempt to increase amount of foreign exchange Nigerian earns on such products towards diversifying the economy with increase in export base.
- Modernization of all aspects of agriculture, like distribution, storage, processing and production. Implementation of proper management and viable technologies to ensure agriculture can meet with the needs and expectations of the other sectors towards further grooming of the economy.
- Provision of more rural employment opportunities through agricultural development towards increasing farmers’ incomes and bettering the lot of rural dwellers. This equally provides employment opportunity towards reducing unemployment rate.
- Improvement and protection of arable lands useful for farming and protection of all resources on and under the ground. Preservation of the farming environment to ensure sustainable production in agriculture.
- Establishment of all necessary institutions to cater for needs of farmers and promote farming. Creation of necessary administrative organs that can help facilitates the realization of all agricultural potentials of the country.
To implement the agricultural policies highlighted above, there is need to provide the right equipment for farmers and make machineries available to help alleviate some of the challenges encountered in the farming processes, provision of improved seeds that can develop fast and also resist disease will equally go a long way. Also, the government should improve on husbandry and also make seed stocks available for farmers.