Circumstances altered radically with the oil boom of the 1970s, as the discovery of huge oil and gas reserves in the strategically substantial sub-Saharan country turned its fortunes overnight. The windfall transformed Nigeria's farming landscape into a massive oil field crisscrossed by more than 7,000 km of pipelines linking 6,000 oil wells, two refineries, numerous flow stations and export terminals. The enormous financial investments in the sector settled, with informal price quotes suggesting Abuja generated more than $600 billion in petrodollars in the last decade alone.

Sadly, the obsession with non-renewables over all other sectors of the economy ultimately turned Nigeria's boon into a bane. Newfound wealth generated political instability and enormous corruption in government circles, and the nation was rent asunder by decades of violent civil war and succeeding military coups. Farming was among the very first casualties of the oil regime, and by the 1990s, cultivation accounted for simply 5% of GDP. Farming modernisation and support continued to stay low on the list of national concerns as huge stretches of rural Nigeria slowly plunged into poverty and food shortage. Deforestation, soil erosion and industrial contamination even more accelerated the down-spiral of agriculture to the point where it wound up as a subsistence activity.

The fall of Nigerian agriculture coincided with the collapse of its macroeconomic and human advancement indications. With income distribution concentrated on a couple of urban pockets, most of rural Nigeria was left reeling under massive hardship, unemployment and food scarcities. A broadening urban-rural divide triggered social discontent and mass migration into towns and cities. Arranged metropolitan criminal offense ended up being as real a security danger as militancy in the Niger Delta area. Nigeria plunged to the bottom in world economic rankings and Africa's most populous country got the dissatisfied difference of having majority (54%) of its 148 million people residing in abject hardship. The World Bank created the term "Nigerian Paradox" specifically to explain the special condition of extreme underdevelopment and hardship in a nation brimming with resources and capacity. The country was ranked 80th in a 2007 UNDP poverty survey covering 108 countries.

The transition to democratic civilian guideline at the end of the last century led the way for an enthusiastic programme of financial reform and restructuring. Abuja's urgency for inclusive growth was much in evidence in the adoption of an ambitious plan designed to reverse trends and boost a stagnating economy. The Vision 2020 document embraced under previous president O Obsanjo lays out broad specifications for sustainable advancement with the particular objective of instating Nigeria as a worldwide economic superpower in a time-bound way. The 2020 goals are in addition to Nigeria's commitment to the UN Millennial Statement of 2000 that proposes universal standard human rights by 2015.

The realisation of these allied and intertwined objectives depends entirely on Abuja's capability to bring about inclusive growth by methods of an entrepreneurial transformation, while concurrently fixing enormous infrastructural scarcities and administrative abnormalities. Economies typically begin broadening with an initial agricultural transformation: The case of Nigeria nevertheless requires agriculture to be part of a bigger business transformation that effectively leverages the nation's substantial resources and human capital.

The intricacy of issues involved here is shown in the fact that the National Hardship Obliteration Program of 2001 recognizes agriculture and rural development as its main location of interest. The fact that all advancement has to start from the bottom-up can not be overemphasised in the context of Nigeria, where a farming boom can ensure not just food supply and exports but also supply industrial raw materials and a market for items.

Agricultural expansion is critical to financial prosperity throughout Western Africa, considering the region's debilitating poverty line. A 2003 conference organised by NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Advancement) in South Africa highly advised the promo of cassava cultivation as a hardship obliteration tool throughout the continent. The suggestion is based upon a technique that concentrates on markets, private sector involvement and research study to drive a pan-African cassava initiative. What was when a rural staple and famine-reserve food has ended up being a profitable cash crop!

The NEPAD initiative has strong relevance for Nigeria, the world's biggest cassava producer. With its large rural population and extensive farmlands, the country boasts unrivalled opportunities of changing the humble cassava to a commercial raw material for both domestic and international markets. There is a growing and well-justified belief that the crop can change rural economies, stimulate rapid financial and commercial development and assist disadvantaged neighborhoods. While production grew gradually in between 1980 and 2002 from 10,000 MT to over 35,000 MT, there is scope for considerable additional boost by bringing more land under cassava cultivation. Nigeria needs to take the lead not just in establishing better production, collecting and processing technologies, however likewise in discovering brand-new uses and markets for what is undoubtedly a marvel crop. Nigeria stands to make huge strides towards inclusive and sustainable advancement just through the intelligent and sensible promotion of cassava farming.

The following are some of the most immediate requirements for an effective revolution in Nigerian farming:

o Active promotion and facility of agro-based markets that produce employment, sustain local food requirements and motivate exports.

o Efficient actions to modernise and diversify the farming economy as a means of buttressing entrepreneurial growth in secondary sectors.

o Organization of a tariff system that promotes regional produce against more affordable imports, together with the elimination of institutional barriers against agricultural profitability.

o Subsidies on latest cctv camera highly sophisticated farm equipment and practices that assist increase productivity without any negative environmental side effects.

o An umbrella hardship relief program designed specifically to promote agrarian reforms while concurrently enhancing the lifestyle in rural neighborhoods.

o Boosted access to farming enterprise loans through a network of regulated lending institutions supportive to farming realities.

o Adult education programs designed to help Nigerian farmers update to locally pertinent however modern techniques of growing, marketing and circulation.

o Motivation of both public and private sector farming research study aimed at remedying technological constraints faced by local farming communities.

If Nigeria's agricultural potential is enormous, it is partially since more than 90% of its 91 million hectares of overall land area is arable. While soil fertility is usually estimated on the lower side, the UN Food and Farming Organisation (FAO) forecasts medium to high yields across the country with optimal utilisation of resources. Combined with Nigeria's significant rural population typically associated with farming, this forecast translates to enormous prospects in regards to agricultural efficiency and, by extension, financial resurgence. For a nation emerging out of a struggling past and struggling to achieve social, political and economic stability, the ideals of farming and entrepreneurial revolution hold critically important. Due to the fact that they are likewise inextricably linked in the Nigerian context, the country's future position on the world economic stage depends actually on the bounty of its harvest.