The History of Agriculture in Nigeria from the Colonial Era to the Present Day

Beaming sunrays, beautiful trees, and wild animals sound like the vacation of a lifetime. The country of Nigeria has all of these things plus plenty more to offer. Nigeria is located on the warm, dry, tropic continent of Africa. Unique foods, bright and colorful clothing, rythme filled dances come to mind when I think of Nigeria. Some people on the other hand would like to enjoy a warm fire place with a cup of hot creamy cocoa and soft fuzzy blankets in a winter lodge of Denmark. Sometimes A soft fur, games, food and being surrounded by family is all person need to call their vacation complete. Two different places with an abundance of beauty waiting to be seen.

I learned a plethora of information about the decades leading up to the Nigerian civil war as a result of this reading. Firstly, I never knew that the process of gaining independence was a systematized and prolonged one in the sense that there were 10-year programs established to facilitate this process, including the development and expansion of “social services, infrastructure, and local industries” (Falola and Heaton 146). I don’t know why I had always romanticized the independence of Nigeria to be an abrupt and quick toppling of the entrenched colonialist systems.

The country of Nigeria is located in West Africa, sharing land borders with Chad, Niger, Benin, and Cameroon. The country covers 923,768 square kilometers, making it the 32nd largest nation in the world. This is the most populous country in Africa with more than 160 million people living there. Nigeria has three major ethnic groups the Hausa-Fulani, the Igbo, and the Yoruba. These Three groups constitute about 70 percent of the population (Chigozie, 2016).

The urban agriculture development succeeded due to structural changes implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture in coordination with local and municipal governments, the efforts of research centers, national and international non-governmental organization (NGO’S), collaborative projects, and not to mention the determination of the farmers. (Murphy, 1999) The government’s department of

Ghana was not only self-sufficient from its trading economy, but also from its harvesting of crops and livestock. The land consisted of several species of millet, rice, and cotton. Being a zone that was introduced to iron very early on, their agricultural sector flourished. Consequently, handicraft industries such as cotton cloth production sprang as they took advantage of the nation’s huge surpluses. Additionally, livestock was plentiful in the open savannah of western Africa.

Both Eastern United States and Northern Africa were considered independent agricultural hearths. In the Eastern United States commercial farming is practiced, while in Northern Africa is more subsistence farming. The availability of technology is greater in the US than in Africa, therefore the US has access to machinery. The US will practice commercial farming because there are other ways to make a living and people are not dependent on agriculture as their only means of survival. However, in Northern Africa, access to other ways of living is limited and they must rely on agriculture to sustain them. In Northern Africa, they practice pastoral nomadism or pastoralism. This deals with herding and breeding animals in order to produce food.

The Republic of Niger, a poor, landlocked country, located in the heart of Sub-Saharan West Africa. Niger has seen its fair share of change throughout the decades; moving away from the control of the French Parliament in 1960, Niger formally declared its independence. Despite this bold act of independence, Niger would not see its first steps towards democracy until the early 1990’s, when they held their first open election as a free state. However, even with the empowerment of the people in a democratic government, Niger has seen itself nearly torn apart as a result constant coups, that have occurred as recently as 2010. Such instability has led to incredulous amounts of corruption and poverty, within the Niger government. This lack of stability and constant turnover in government, has been a driving factor behind the lack of resources available for education in Niger.

East Africa has many main crops, but for the drier sections of East Africa, the cropping system is bent around millet. In the more humid districts, main crops are maize and cassava. Coffee, tea, tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton are the crops that produce the most money. Because of the lack of irrigation, East Africa’s crops are very vulnerable to unpredictable weather and external shocks. Water availability is one factor that limits as to how many crops it can produce a year. A project is currently going on to accelerate irrigation development in the more humid regions and rain-fed crops, so people who live in those regions can have their water and food.

It was clear that the exploitation of useful resources brought a lot of profit; however, the British bought cash crops for a very cheap price from the natives while they sold it for extravagantly expensive price back to the natives (Colonialism: Impact of Colonialism on Nigeria by the British). This meant that the Nigerians lost money from the system while the British gained most of the profit made from it. In addition to that, “all able-bodied males between 15 and 50, and females between 15 and 40 [who] were liable for labour for road-making… [worked] up to 6 days every 3 months” (Crowder 208). Colonial powers always had difficulties on making money out of their colonies, and due to their greed, the British made use of the Nigerian people to gain more money. They forced those who were capable of working to work during the majority of the time while they had to pay high taxes as well. In other words, in A History of Nigeria, Isichei states, “it is rather unfortunate that we were given nothing in return and whenever we asked the collectors about the use of the money, the only answer we heard was that it was for the government” (387). To put this bluntly, this meant that all the money earned by the people went to the government, especially through paying high taxes. The British did not share the profits made by the people in Nigeria but instead,

Nigeria is a country that has a lot of historic cultures and empires. Nigeria goes back as far as the 5th century BC. During the 9th century the trading empire grows up around Lake Chad. Which then became the center of Nigeria. Its original center is east of the lake, in the Kanem region, but it soon extends to Bornu on the western side. In the 11th century the ruler of Kanem-Bornu converted to Islam. West of Bornu, is where Hausa people reign. They were placed in the right place so that they could control trade with the forest regions to the south. The Hausa develop a number of small but stable kingdoms, each ruled from a strong walled city. In the savanna grasslands and the forest regions west of the Niger, between the Hausa kingdoms and

Benin history is recorded with no composed documentation. A great many generations have gone down the historical backdrop of the Benin individuals orally. This has been strengthened by pictorial pictures in Benin workmanship and likenesses. Models of Obas, Benin Queens, and Queen Mothers, these notwithstanding regular pictures of Benin life, change scenes et cetera, are spoken to in their authentic tastefulness. Nothing unexpected then to see when the Portuguese arrived and turned into a piece of that history, they were delineated in their bizarre garments, weapons and ordinary interests, for example, chasing, (British Museum). It is surprising to note that the greater part of these craftsmanship pieces are by obscure craftsman, even with only

Moreover, the infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa is inexpertly perfect, it has the world’s poorest transportation, power, and internet network. The colonial history of Sub-Saharan Africa did not like other colonies bring perfect infrastructure for them.

Summarise and compare the evidence for the development of agriculture in South West Asia and North America.

Researching and learning about history can help resolve recurring issues that may take place in all cultures. Studying a nation’s culture can help you understand what they were like centuries ago and how they may look centuries from now. A culture’s history can define their past, explain their present, and pave the way to their future. Each culture has its own unique story, but Nigeria’s is even more special. Nigeria’s history has shaped the culture into what it has become today.

The European imperial and colonial influence on Nigeria was tremendous and ended up hurting the tribal traditions in the area. This is evident in books like Things Fall Apart and Death of a King’s Horseman where the traditions of the tribes were weakened by the through the British rules and laws. For example, in Death of a King’s Horseman, the play opens on Elesin needing to commit suicide based on the tribal traditions. However, the British official in the area viewed it as a barbaric and primitive practice that is against the rules of the British Empire. Due to this there was a fight between the two cultures with maleness being one of the cornerstones of the Nigerian society being criticized through this struggle.