Situations altered radically with the oil boom of the 1970s, as the discovery of large oil and gas reserves in the strategically considerable sub-Saharan nation turned its fortunes overnight. The windfall transformed Nigeria's agricultural landscape into an enormous oil field crisscrossed by more than 7,000 km of pipelines connecting 6,000 oil wells, 2 refineries, countless circulation stations and export terminals. The colossal investments in the sector paid off, with informal estimates recommending Abuja generated more than $600 billion in petrodollars in the last decade alone.

Regrettably, the fixation with non-renewables over all other sectors of the economy eventually turned Nigeria's boon into a bane. Newfound wealth spawned political instability and enormous corruption in federal government circles, and the country was rent asunder by years of violent civil war and succeeding military coups. Farming was one of the first casualties of the oil routine, and by the 1990s, growing accounted for just 5% of GDP. Farming modernisation and support continued to remain short on the list of national top priorities as vast stretches of rural Nigeria slowly plunged into hardship and food shortage. Logging, soil disintegration and industrial pollution further quickened the down-spiral of farming to the point where it ended up as a subsistence activity.

The fall of Nigerian agriculture accompanied the collapse of its macroeconomic and human development indicators. With income circulation concentrated on a couple of city pockets, most of rural Nigeria was left reeling under enormous hardship, unemployment and food lacks. A broadening urban-rural divide triggered social unrest and mass migration into towns and cities. Arranged city crime became as real a security hazard as militancy in the Niger Delta region. Nigeria plummeted to the bottom in world economic rankings and Africa's most populous country acquired the dissatisfied distinction of having over half (54%) of its 148 million individuals living in abject hardship. The World Bank created the term "Nigerian Paradox" specifically to describe the special condition of severe underdevelopment and hardship in a country teeming with resources and capacity. The nation was ranked 80th in a 2007 UNDP poverty study covering 108 nations.

The transition to democratic civilian rule at the end of the last century led the way for a passionate program of financial reform and restructuring. Abuja's seriousness for inclusive development was much in proof in the adoption of an enthusiastic plan developed to reverse trends and start a stagnating economy. The Vision 2020 file adopted under former president O Obsanjo lays out broad parameters for sustainable development with the specific objective of instating Nigeria as an international economic superpower in a time-bound manner. The 2020 objectives are in addition to Nigeria's commitment to the UN Millennial Statement of 2000 that proposes universal fundamental human rights by 2015.

The realisation of these allied and linked objectives depends completely on Abuja's ability to bring about inclusive development by methods of an entrepreneurial transformation, while all at once correcting massive infrastructural lacks and administrative abnormalities. Economies typically begin expanding with a preliminary agricultural transformation: The case of Nigeria nevertheless calls for agriculture to be part of a larger business transformation that effectively leverages the country's comprehensive resources and human capital.

The intricacy of problems involved here is shown in the truth that the National Hardship Eradication Program of 2001 recognizes indoor lighting agriculture and rural development as its main area of interest. The truth that all development has to start from the bottom-up can not be overemphasised in the context of Nigeria, where a farming boom can guarantee not simply food supply and exports but likewise supply industrial raw materials and a market for products.

Agricultural growth is critical to economic prosperity throughout Western Africa, considering the area's crippling poverty levels. A 2003 conference organised by NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Advancement) in South Africa highly urged the promotion of cassava cultivation as a hardship removal tool across the continent. The recommendation is based upon a strategy that concentrates on markets, economic sector involvement and research study to drive a pan-African cassava effort. What was as soon as a rural staple and famine-reserve food has ended up being a rewarding cash crop!

The NEPAD initiative has strong significance for Nigeria, the world's largest cassava manufacturer. With its big rural population and comprehensive farmlands, the country boasts unique chances of changing the modest cassava to an industrial raw material for both domestic and international markets. There is a growing and well-justified belief that the crop can transform rural economies, spur fast economic and industrial development and help disadvantaged neighborhoods. While production grew progressively in between 1980 and 2002 from 10,000 MT to over 35,000 MT, there is scope for significant further increase by bringing more land under cassava cultivation. Nigeria needs to take the lead not just in developing much better production, collecting and processing technologies, however also in discovering brand-new uses and markets for what is certainly a wonder crop. Nigeria stands to make huge strides towards inclusive and sustainable development just through the intelligent and sensible promo of cassava farming.

The following are a few of the most immediate requirements for a successful revolution in Nigerian farming:

o Active promo and establishment of agro-based industries that generate work, sustain regional food requirements and encourage exports.

o Efficient steps to modernise and diversify the farming economy as a method of strengthening entrepreneurial growth in ancillary sectors.

o Institution of a tariff system that promotes regional produce versus cheaper imports, together with the elimination of institutional barriers against farming profitability.

o Subsidies on technically innovative farm equipment and practices that help increase productivity without any unfavorable environmental adverse effects.

o An umbrella poverty relief programme developed specifically to promote agrarian reforms while simultaneously improving the quality of life in rural communities.

o Enhanced access to farming business loans through a network of regulated lending institutions sympathetic to farming realities.

o Adult education programmes created to help Nigerian farmers update to locally pertinent however modern-day approaches of cultivation, marketing and distribution.

o Encouragement of both public and private sector farming research study targeted at correcting technological restraints faced by regional farming communities.

If Nigeria's farming capacity is enormous, it is partly due to the fact that more than 90% of its 91 million hectares of overall land area is arable. While soil fertility is typically approximated on the lower side, the UN Food and Farming Organisation (FAO) anticipates medium to high yields throughout the country with optimum utilisation of resources. Integrated with Nigeria's substantial rural population typically involved in agriculture, this forecast translates to massive prospects in terms of agricultural productivity and, by extension, economic renewal. For a nation emerging out of a distressed past and struggling to attain social, political and financial stability, the perfects of agricultural and entrepreneurial revolution hold vitally important. Since they are also inextricably linked in the Nigerian context, the nation's future position on the world financial phase depends literally on the bounty of its harvest.