CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    Background of the Study

A major problem facing Nigeria today is how to produce enough food for its geometrically increasing population. The level of food production in the country is barely keeping pace with the population growth. The general food situation in Nigeria has been precarious since the early 1970s. The rate of growth in demand for food in Nigeria in the 1970s was 3.7 percent per annum (Food and Agriculture Organization rate (FAO) 2007.

In the past two decades the gap between demand and supply of food in Nigeria increased considerably. According to Enugu State blue print on Agricultural policy and program (2006) the population growth in Enugu State is 4332750 persons, which is out pacing food production. To increase production for the increasing population, farmers decide to join cooperative societies. According to Mgbada (2002) observed that the formation of farmers cooperative societies has helped

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members work together to solve their problems in respect of inputs, credits and marketing of their products.

A look at the Nigerian agricultural sector shows that there is every need for something to be done in the area of production for meaningful development to be achieved. The technological revolution has brought about several changes in the structure of agriculture and that is why some agricultural development programmes were initiated by successive government to boost food production. They are:-

1.           Agricultural Development Project (ADP) 1972

2.           Federal Ministry of Agriculture which was created in 1973, it was charged with developing agriculture.

3.           National Accelerated Food Production Programme (NAFPP) of 1973.

4.           River Basin Development Authority (RBDA) 1974.

In 1976, Obasanjo administration launched operation

feed the Nation with the hope that food production would increase. His successor Alhaji Shehu Shargari introduced the Green Revolution in 1980, as at the end of February 1983, a

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staggering sum of #1.2 million had been spent on the programme without any visible increase in food production. Time international (1983).

Also launched were Directorate of Food Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI) of 1987. The Nigerian Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) of 1992 and later was scrapped Umebali (2004). The facilities such as 18 agricultural commodity Research institutions, 44 agricultural input and services. Mention should be made of Nigerian Agricultural and Cooperative Bank Limited now Nigerian Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Bank and that of rural banking known as Nigeria Micro-Finance Banks. All with the hope that food production would increase.

In Nigeria, farming activities are dominantly performed by individual farmers or household farmers. There is no doubt that the small scale farmers constitutes an important and in invaluable sector on Nigeria economy. The small scale farmers are very efficient in the utilization of the basic production resources available to them. The Nigerian small scale farmers

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do make significant and important contribution in National economy.

Despite these obvious role played by the small farmers in the economy, the issue of food production is fast into perennial problem. Madu (2004) stated that the record in recent years in many African countries with respect to agricultural production has not been good. Ozowa (2004) observed that a country that is self–sufficient in food production enjoys reasonable measure of power status to certain degree in the work. This according to him is because a country that produces enough food for domestic consumption and excess for export enjoys economic advantages and can utilize food effectively, as power weapon or foreign policy. This self-sufficiency in food production can only be achieved if Nigerian’s greater population that is made up of rural dwellers is mobilized both men and women.

The FAO report of 2000 agreed that a nation of rural people must spend most of its manpower and energy in the endless quest for food, and that is only when men and women could be released from its struggle for food its would be

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