Agriculture and Natural Environment

Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy of many of the west African Countries like other sectors of any country's economy the development of agriculture is faced with many natural environmental problems. Some of these are

1. Local Customs

Agriculture in Nigeria is largely at subsistence level and the main problem facing its development is how to improve the farming system in order to produce sufficient high quality commodities to feed the population and to supply the export market. To effect any real changes in the present system, it is necessary to understand the traditions of the local people. They have strong views and attitudes on ownerships, systems of cropping and rearing of livestock, views based on tradition, legend, folklore and superstition. Knowledge of the background of the people is fundamental to any development programme, as it will enable the planners to involve the people concerned directly in the programme and harness the local effort. When an existing practice or customs does not hinder any advancement, it should be incorporated into the programme. As some of the people realize that they themselves are an essential part of such a programme, mutual confidence and trust will be generated and local assistance will be readily forthcoming when changes are introduced, the farmer also must be convinced that the innovation will give him a significantly higher yield or income than the traditional method.

Communications, Transport And Marketing

Most of the existing agricultural land and land suitable for agricultural development is situated in inaccessible areas. Roads to these areas may be poor or completely lacking. This makes the transport to these areas difficult. There is often a lack of transport to export produce and therefore the farmer depends only on the local market whatever produce he is unable to sell at the local market or export through local middlemen is usually left to waste, due to lack of storage facilities. In addition, the farmer generally receives very poor prices for his commodities. Under these conditions there is a complete lack of incentive for increase production or development in any direction. Any substantial extension of the transport systems and links to remote areas will therefore stimulate agricultural development and production. Telecommunications and postal systems also have an influence on the development of agriculture because many areas in topical Africa still lack adequate communication facilities.

Education

The level of education among the farming class in West African and throughout many countries in the tropics is generally low. In his own achievement, the local farmer has a great deal of knowledge concerning the weather, crops, wild and cultivated fruits, medicinal and poisonous plants, and field and domesticated animals. But all this

knowledge is based on local custom, superstition and legend. Throughout tropical Africa superstition dominates the pattern of behaviors of the local people. It is a great impediment to progress since it insulates the mind and isolates the community so that it rejects the idea of change. The agricultural extension worker is most concerned in helping the people to understand the best ways to raise crop and animals productivity. At all stages the extension worker should know the significance and necessity for change, the agricultural extension worker often fails in his education of the people, either because he has not sufficiently motivated them or because, he is communicating at a level far above that which the ordinary farmer can easily understand. This indicates that there is a need for the provision of general agricultural education.

Health and Medical Services

The health of large sections of the population in the tropics remains very poor due to the lack of efficient medical services. Disease such as malaria, coupled with malnutrition, reduce health and weaken people, thus affecting their agricultural productivity, for people to survive and work at productive level there must be well organized health education based on personal hygiene. This encourages positive attitudes to maintaining a reasonable standard of living by building sanitary latrines, obtaining a pure water supply, living in hygienic surroundings and following balanced diets.

5. Capital or Credit

In most tropical countries agriculture is mainly of a subsistence type, based on shifting cultivation or rotational bush fallow. Under this peasant system, the farmer is chiefly concerned with provision for his family. Any produce which is surplus to the family need he sells for cash or barter. Under the subsistence system of cultivation, he requires only a small allocation of land and uses simple tools. He does not require any capital or credit. The production of food for an ever-increasing population means that land already under cultivation must be improve and new areas opened up for cultivation. Increased production involves the use associated use associated technology including farm mechanization. For the farmer to be able to embark on any large-scale agricultural project, he requires finance and credit facilities. Such facilities may be available to large scale commercial or estate farmers, either from banks or commercial firms, based on their credit worthiness. The small farmers or cultivators who have no contact with commercial firms and banks do not have easy access to credit.

Commercial banks are usually reluctant to engage in the provision of agricultural credit because this involves risks. For example, unfavorable climatic or soil conditions, inadequate technological experience, the lack of improved varieties and outbreak of insect pests and diseases may completely ruin a farmer's enterprise. Agricultural loans are also usually required for medium or Long-term farm improvement which the banks are generally reluctant to underwrite. Funds for agricultural development therefore come mainly from cooperative banks and from private individuals but rarely from commercial banks.

Land Tenure system

The system of land tenure may hinder the development of agriculture. Land in Nigeria is owned mostly by families, by communities, or by chiefs who have control over the land within their kingdom. Land is rarely owned by individuals under freehold titles. Family ownership may be through a matrilineal or matrilineal type of inheritance.

During the farming season, the family or communal land is shared among the members of the family and that which is surplus to their requirement is rented out to tenants farmers. Both members of the family and tenants farm on the land for a prescribed period after which the land is allowed to revert to bush for a number of years. This system of shifting cultivation does not normally allow the farmer enough time to carry out any major development on the land.

In patrilineal inheritance the land is divided among the male members of the family after the death of the family ahead. The continuation of this practice, for generation after generation leads to fragmentation of the land which makes the individual units uneconomically small. The various units owned by one individual are also frequently situated kilometers apart.

Technology

The majority of the population of Nigeria lives in the villages. Approximately 90% of the rural population of Nigeria is engaged in various agricultural pursuits, ranging from the cultivations of arable crops to animal husbandry. The productivity is general low, due to the fact that the farmer lacks technical knowledge to develop his crops or livestock above substance level. The use of modern farm equipment and techniques is at present limited and most farmers are still using traditional tools such as the hoe and matchet, which their forefathers used. Only rarely are ox-drawn wooden or steel ploughs used.

Manures, fertilizer, insecticides and fungicides are rarely available and many farmers do not understand the use of the materials. There is a lacks of effective extension work aimed at convincing the farmer why he should adopt new practices.

The farmer also lacks knowledge of the proper management of livestock and he

does not make use of the available vertinery services.

This is sometimes due to ignorance or superstition and sometimes to the fact that most herdsmen live in places remote from vertinery facilities. This situation makes the control of pests and diseases such as trypanosmiasis and rinderpest difficult.

Agricultural development requires all the improvement in techniques and practices, which can be applied to raise the level of national subsistence, a well-planned basic technical training for farmers is needed.