According to the UNDP (2001) report, Nigeria started its independent nationhood in 1960 with poverty level of only 15% of population, but it is today struggling to reduce it from about 70% of its current population of about 190 million. This is in spite of the fact that the country is richly endowed with numerous natural, especially agricultural and mineral resources. Nigeria's rising extreme poverty numbers are a direct result of years of negligent and ineffective government policies. Over-dependence on oil for years and an inability to generate non-oil revenue has led it to this. The country's agricultural policy aims at reaching self-sustaining growth in the agricultural sector as well as the structural transformation required for the overall socioeconomic development and improvement in the quality of life of Nigerians. The key feature of the policy is the evolution of strategies for ensuring self-sufficiency and the improvement of the technical and economic efficiency in food production. This is to be achieved through the introduction and adoption of improved seeds and seed stock, husbandry and appropriate machinery and equipment, efficient utilization of resources, encouragement of ecological specialization and recognition of the roles and potentials of small-scale farmers as the main drivers of food production in the country. Nigeria's agricultural policy framework has evolved in a way that reflected, in a historical perspective, the changing character of agricultural development problems and the roles which different segments of the society were expected to play in addressing these problems. The form and direction of agricultural policy were dictated by the philosophical stance of government on the content of agricultural development and the role of government in the development process. Here, we examined Nigeria's agricultural policy evolution from the colonial to the contemporary period. The very survival of Nigeria is tied to the ability of its economy to meet the material demands of its citizens since welfare con-How to cite this paper: Eneji, R. I., & Akwaji, F. (2018). Evolution, Strategies and Problems of Poverty-Alleviating Agricultural Policies and Programmes in Nigeria.

This paper presents a critical analysis of the process of Social Engineering. It looks at social Engineering as the art of ordering and reordering the society. The explanation in the paper shows that social science theories and paradigms provide the framework and the methodological guide through which the society can be engineered. In the paper the researcher presented the opinion that public and social policy process is routed in social science method and methodology. As theories and paradigms analysed the society and other social phenomenon, explain and predict their future direction, pension which is a developmental policy also seek to provide solution to societal problems by explaining and analyzing the problem as well as predicting future direction of the problem. This paper focuses on poverty experienced science by Pensioners and the dependants of dead pubic and civil servants in Nigeria. It looked at the present state of squalor and misery and examined the contributory Pension Reform Act 2004 as an attempt by the government in utilizing social science technique to find solution to societal problems. The paper concludes that the implementation of the Pension Reform Act will change and reorder the society from poverty to new order of excess fund to beneficiary and the entire economy, thereby improving the standard of living and quality of life of Nigerians. The paper is an explanative analysis which recommends the utilization of social science investigation and theory formulation skills in providing solutions to emerging societal and organizational problems. (241 word

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