ABSTRACT
Rural development is a veritable tool for fighting poverty and achieving economic prosperity at the grass root level. The concept of rural development embrace by most countries connotes a process through which rural poverty-is alleviated by sustained increase in the productivity of agriculture and income of low-ncome workers and households. The major thrust of this research work examined the impact of agriculture on rural development in Nigeria. Six research questions and three hypothesis model were answered and tested respectively. This project was centered on research methodology to analyse the importance in social and economic advancement on the Nigeria economy in other to consider the shortcoming of the agricultural sector and to formulate policy option that will serve as a sort for improving the sector.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
In the early 80s attention began to shift the overall development of the rural economy. Although agriculture still remained the mainspring of interest in rural sector.
Regional government however became the principle agent of rural development attempting to strengthen and diversify the base of the economy and also to improve social welfare and services.
As trend in the quality of life in developing nations became clearer in 1990s, rural sector became a major concern of the national government, a more comprehensive policy were adopted such as agricultural development projects [ADP] The River Development Authorities [RDA] and the green revolution .
The first integrated approach to develop the rural areas was the establishment of the directorate for food, road and rural infrastructure in 1989.This represents a more fundamental approach in solving rural problems, although it has it shortcomings. This programme has since been preceded by other equality viable and substantial programmes most contemporary scheme are successors to earlier, invariably unsuccessful and usually prematurely aborted programme.
At present, the need to enhance the overall and rapid development of the rural sector of the economy has become important in other to facilitate the development of the national economy. The slogan "rural development" has become almost a household word and the subject matter is so popular that is sure to be mentioned somewhere in the Nigeria media each day of the year.
In Nigeria after independence, the agricultural sector of the economy was an object of neglect; Nigeria has since been faced with the challenges of economic disarray, to a country-living beyond its means to a people bewildered for no longer being able to provide the basic necessities of life for them selves.
According to Adekunle [1990], effort to develop rural communities was basically directed towards agriculture. This means that he rural man was not only viewed in term of what his needs were but also what he could provide for his country. Although various agricultural policies that were put in place by the government performed fairly well, they failed to achieve the desired outcome as far as the development of rural sector is concerned.
Subsequently, rural development were comprehensive is this more fundamental approach in solving rural problems include the establishment of directorate for food, road, rural and infrastructural [DFRRI], the Better Life Program [BLP] the people bank of Nigeria [PBN] The Universal Primary Education Programme, Nomadic Education Programme, The Mass Mobilization Programme [MAMSER] and in recent time, The family support programme [FSP] and the petroleum trust fund [PTF].
1.1 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The aim of this study is to examine critically the performance of rural development, agricultural development programme in Nigeria to analyze the importance in the social and economic advancement on the Nigeria economy to really consider the problem and shortcomings by the agricultural sector and to formulate policy option that can be put in place to solve and improve the rural sector development.
The study also shows that the Nigeria economy still maintain the typical symptoms of subsistence agriculture which is mostly dominated by small scale farmers who are responsible for about 95 percent of the total output in Nigeria.
However, the rural economy of Nigeria which is supposed to form the bedrock of national development has suffered undue neglect starting from the colonial era till date. The direct consequence of this neglect has been a direct decline in national output and the general standard of living of the average Nigeria.
Hence, the rural or agricultural sector which has been neglected for other sector must be developed with the introduction of modern sophisticated tools to improve the agricultural sector so that food security would be guaranteed in the economy and also the industrial sector could have raw materials for their production.
.