Agrarian rural dwellers in Nigeria produce about 95% of locally grown food commodities. The low accessibility to and affordability of orthodox medicine by rural dwellers and their need to keep healthy to be economically productive, have led to their dependence on traditional medicine. This paper posits an increasing acceptance of traditional medicine country-wide and advanced reasons for this trend. The fact that traditional medicine practitioners' concept of disease is on a wider plane vis-à-vis orthodox medicine practitioners' has culminated in some socio-cultural and magico-religious practices observed in preparation and use of plant medicines for farmers' health management. Possible scientific reasons were advanced for some of these practices to show the nexus between traditional medicine and orthodox medicine. The paper concludes that the psychological aspect of traditional medicine are reflected in its socio-cultural and magico-religious practices and suggests that government should fund research into traditional medicine to identify components of it that can be integrated into the national health system.

Smallholder livestock farmers in Nigeria utilize traditional medicines derived from medicinal plants (PMs) for the maintenance of their animals' health. This study was designed to determine the PMs used in the study area and their level of utilization by livestock farmers, compare the level of utilization of PMs across the three states surveyed and identify the socio-economic factors influencing farmer's utilization of PMs. Thirty-five PMs were identified. Farmers had considerable knowledge about the identified PMs but about 80.0% of them used the PMs to poor/moderate extent. There were statistical differences in the utilization level of PMs among the three states. Six socio-economic variables were found to be statistically significant in influencing PMs' utilization. Farmer's age, household size, distance to the nearest veterinary hospital/clinic and extent of travels, had positive effects while negative effects were exhibited by farm income and number of heads of livestock. It was concluded that there was considerable knowledge about PMs and that utilization of PMs varied between the three states. It was recommended that local knowledge of PMs be preserved in the study area through screening and documentation.

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Insufficient institutional credit is a major contributor to the persistent poor performance of the Nigerian agricultural sector. To encourage financial institutions to increase lending to the sector, a partial credit guarantee scheme was instituted. The scheme commenced operations in 1978 with an authorized capital of N 100.00 million, subscribed to 60% and 40% by the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Central Bank of Nigeria, respectively. This paper presents an appraisal of the scheme. The results revealed that there has been continuous growth in paid-up share capital, total fund resources, maximum amount of loan obtainable by farmers, number and value of loans guaranteed, volume and value of loans fully repaid and volume and value of default claims settled. There was a long-run convergence between the number and volume of guaranteed loans and the agricultural GDP. This finding indicates the need to expand the quantum of funds available for guaranteeing agricultural loans to increase performance of the agricultural sector in the long run. This step is justified by the strategic role of agriculture in the Nigerian economy in terms of food and fiber production, job creation, income generation, poverty reduction and economic stability.

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