Nigeria is developing country whose pre-independence economy solely depended on agriculture. Most of the development achieved were made possible grossly from the nation’s agricultural output such as cocoa, rubber, oil palm produce, groundnut cotton` hides and skin to mention a few . Foodstuffs were available and very cheap. The country’s civil war was prosecuted mainly from the resources from the agricultural sector without the need to  borrow a cent from any external financial institution.

Immediately after the war petroleum was discovered in commercial quantity and the agricultural sector was abandoned. The failure of subsequent Federal Governments to invest sufficient money agriculture necessitated the abandonment of the sector by the youths and the educated populace who found new hopes in working in urban areas. Consequently, the numbers of the farmers began to reduce by the day while population continue to increase. The noticeable effects of the neglect of agriculture are (1) rural-urban migration  (2) shortage of food supply, (3) unemployment problem in the urban areas, (4) reduction in the income of the rural dwellers and (5) short supply of most of the essential necessities of life, such as good and qualitative education, poor health facilities, shortage of food and general inadequate provision of infrastructures.

In Nigeria, the programme of “Reaching the rural Poor” should begin by retracing the steps to when  the of rural- urban migration and other vices began. It must be remembered that the problem articulated above will continue to persist irrespective of the government’s budget allocation on provision of infrastructure unless the problems of the rural poor are solved. They will only escalated further unless the solution proffered  for them have the inputs of the affected groups unlike now that the elite who live in urban areas and enjoy some of the good things of life choose to decide for the rural poor. We cannot ignore the adage of ‘Who wears the shoes knows where it pinches”.

Suggestions

1.                 We should encourage mass production of food in the rural areas in order to guarantee regular supply of foodstuff at affordable prices.

2.                 Farmers should be assisted with soft loans to acquire unsophisticated modern  farm implement  for  land clearing , cultivation and maintenance.

3.                 Modern post – harvest methodologies should be introduced to the rural farmers to ameliorate the problem of produce wastage through bad processing, packaging and storage to increase the shelf life span of such products.

4.                 Farmers should be introduced to new markets locally and oversees to prevent gluts.

5.                 On – farm-processing centers should be encouraged and simple processing machines should be made available to the farmers on hire purchase to stem the cost of transporting bulky farm produce to urban areas for processing.

6.                 Farmers organization that have either registered with the federal Government’s Corporate Affairs Commission or with the State Ministry of Commerce and Industry as co- operative societies/ unions should be made to participate adequately in programmes to reach the rural poor . That will serve the purpose of ensuring that farmer’s programmes will be properly supervised by themselves and loan recovery will thus be made easy and effective.

7.                 It must be understood that as at present there is no government functionary that can properly monitor the farmers like farmers like their own officers chosen by themselves and certified to be free and fair by themselves.

8.                  In Nigeria there is no gender discrimination in farming or in the rural areas. The rural poor are the farmers, their wives and their children. They live together in squalors that are neither suitable for the modern piggery nor poultry. Men are traditionally saddle  with responsibilities such as land clearing, reduction of shades, burning and cultivation. Husbands and wives jointly plant some of the crops. Women are traditionally assigned to processing and marketing the products. Although these are few unusual condition where things are vice versa.

9.                 When we talk of petty trading in Nigeria we actually mean 80% women and 20% men. If we talk about the middle men put together 70% are women while 30% are men both in rural and urban areas, hence over 80% of men are in food production and less than 20% of women are involved.

10.              There should be more improvement in the relationship between researchers and the farmers. Information flow between them is too scanty as at now. The two should operate as partners in progress.

11.             “Reaching the rural poor” actually interprets to executing a concrete programme of ameliorating

the problem of the rural dwellers, the farmers and their families. In essence, they are the beneficiaries of the programme as such, its success or failure will reflect on them more than on any group. It will be highly appreciated if they are involved in every facet of the programme from the onset. The farmers have organizes themselves into commodity association in all the rural areas of the country under the national farmers Association of Nigeria. There is assurance that any programme that carries them along will achieve a huge success, not only because they are involved but because the future of their children is equally involved.