Trends in Development Activities of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Anambra State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined trends in development activities of the Anambra State Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development between 1991 and 2013. The study identified the trends in policy and programme initiation, staff recruitment and development, and funding, in the ministry. It employed secondary data through records, documents and annual reports. Results show variation in the percentages of programme initiated and implemented within each year between 1991 and 2013. The ministry did not participate in formulating policies in 46% of the programmes implemented in the state. However, 46% of all the programmes initiated had been concluded, while 54% of all the programmes initiated in the state are still active. The results showed that a total of 403 staff were recruited within the period into the various departments, with the highest number of recruitment (252) occurring between 1991-and 1995 and the least (22) took place from 2006 to 2010. The majority (91) of staff recruited had the ordinary national diploma (OND) and only 30 and 3 persons had the bachelor of science and doctor of philosophy, respectively. The trend in the funding pattern dwindled over time. Out of the five listed human capacity building programmes, staff trainings were organised only between 1991-1995 and 1996-2000). There is need for a change in government commitment to agriculture in the area of funding, human resource and policy as these are key drivers of development. Government should increase the proportion of manpower and create adequate opportunity for training and development of staff of the ministry.
 Keywords: Policy and programmes of the ministry of agriculture, funding of ministry of agriculture, staff recruitment and capacity building.

Assessment of Government Policies, Farm Subsidies, and Agriculture Growth

“…It insists on making farmer's friendly policies, establishing farmers' rights, and enforcing formulate Acts, Laws, Bylaws, and Planning (CPN-UML,2022a; NFC, 2022). The formation of the National Farmers Commission(NFC) in 2017 under the Agriculture Development Strategy is a great outcome of the CALD and other political wings (MoAD, 2015). The NFC is leading for contemporary issues of the farmers, policy studies and lobbying to solve gaps among service providers and clients, and trade-related dispute settlements (NFC, 2022).…”

“…With the guidelines, of PMPD, and the consensus of other political parties, the Nepali Constitution has included two most important fundamental rights related to farming: Article 36(2) ensures the right to be protected against food scarcity and Article 36(3) has mandated right to food sovereignty as of every citizen's right (MoAD, 2015). To the radical change of the peasant families, distributional policy through the government's efforts is particularly important.…”

“…The fourteenth plan (2016/17-2018/19) was completed in July 2019, and Nepal is now at the mid-point of implementing the 15th five-year plan, however, farmers about 60% of are engaged in agriculture, and around 60% of them are still doing substance farming (MoALD, 2022). The utmost policy focuses were food self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and food import substitution (Bhandari, 2011), however, the food availability growth rate before and with APP was not improved significantly (MOAD, 2015). The mean cash subsidy provided by the federal government and provincial government on the GI tunnel was NRs 472000.…”