Introduction

1.0: INTRODUCTION One of the major problems confronting Nigeria today is how to improve the quality of life in the rural areas, and so reduce the level of poverty. Indeed, poverty is a major problem in Nigeria today. Poverty is a condition of having little or no money or other economic endowment and not being able to get the necessities of life. The concept of poverty derives from long and protracted inability to generate productive resources for the purpose of generating desired levels of output in order to enhance the realization of an appreciable income. Most of the poor in Nigeria are based in the rural areas, and are usually resource poor. A resource poor farmer is one that farms a modest piece of land which may not belong to him; uses mostly family labour for farm operations; consumes most of what he produces; lacks funds to purchase inputs; uses low level of technology that is based on low risk and traditional practices, resulting in low productivity; lacks collateral and has no access to loans from financial institutions; and his poverty is further expressed in poor and crude tools, smallness of operation and poor output. The above description of a resource poor farmer characterizes the majority of the rural dwellers in Nigeria.

1.1. Past Efforts on Rural Development Over the years rural development in Nigeria has been closely associated with agriculture. This is not surprising as agriculture is the most important sector in the whole development process. Agriculture provides food and bulk of employment and income for the populace. It is also considered as engine for local industries because of its role as source for raw materials and market for output of these same industries. Nigeria, like many other African countries, relies on agriculture with the sector being important to both economic growth and poverty alleviation. It contributes about 30.9% to the country's GDP (World Fact Book, 2015) and provides employment for about 70% of the population. Of the 91.07 million hectares, arable land is estimated at 33%; grazing land at 44%; forests and woodland at 12% and others at 8%. Eighty per cent of the arable land is potentially cultivable for maize, sorghum, rice, millet, groundnut, cowpea, yams, cassava, okra, cocoa, palm oil, rubber and timber

Nigeria agriculture is largely in the hands of small scale farmers, whose farm holding is on the average estimated to be 0.5hectare (about 2acres) and who operate on an average of 2 plots per farmer (NBS, 2014). Productivity is low as a result of low farm input usage leading to deficiency in domestic food supply. The consequence is massive importation of food to augment domestic production. Rice and wheat are the major food imports to the country, and FAO (2017) reported that imported rice and wheat is expected to exceed 7 million tonnes in 2017. This was the reason why Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) implemented from 2012-2016 focused on five key crops - rice, sorghum, maize, wheat and cassava, which are needed to make Nigeria self-

sufficient in food production. The Agricultural Transformation Agenda (2011) and Agricultural Transformation (ATA) Support Program Phase 1 (2015) seek to add 143,900 metric tons of food to domestic food supply by 2018 and to create 120,000 jobs.

Progress in agriculture is closely linked to several key and often-interrelated factors. These factors usually comprise infrastructure, research, extension, farm inputs, rural credit, land policy etc. This is probably why there have been many agriculture-based programmes aimed at promoting rural development. These include the River Basin Development Authorities, National Accelerated Food Production Programmes (NAFPP), Operation Feed the Nation (OFN), the Green Revolution (GR), The Directorate for Food Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI), Agricultural Development Programmes (ADPs), Fadama I, II and III Projects, Agricultural Transformation Agenda, etc.

Development experts are of the view that participation is an essential ingredient to development. However, many efforts by governments, international development agencies, local organizations and non-governmental organizations with main focus in rural livelihood improvement, in the past few decades did not achieve the desired results in terms of positive impact and its sustainability. This is evident from the number of people in Nigeria and other African countries who still live below one dollar per day and not being able to cater for their basic human needs.

In Nigeria, whenever positive development is achieved it often does not stand the test of time as soon as external support ceases. This is evident from various programmes such as the Agricultural Development Programme (ADPs) supported by World Bank loan. Development effort at local or grassroot level is worsened when targets of such programmes are either left worse off than before or the project measures were not relevant to the needs and aspirations of the people. This situation calls for peopleoriented programme, where intervention is designed to improve existing circumstances of the people; and it should begin and end with target of change. Such approaches which encourage self-reliance among communities and reduce dependence on external interventions by involving people in rural livelihood improvement programme right from needs assessment, prioritizing needs, identifying solutions, adequate planning, implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation of the programmes remain imperative. This is why the beneficiary needs assessment by ATAPS-1 is very important.

1.2: The Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Program Phase 1 (ATASP-1) The Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Program Phase 1 (ATASP-1), unlike previous interventions, which focused on agricultural production, is adopting a commodity value chain development approach in four Staple Crops Processing Zones