EFFECT OF WORLD BANK LOAN WITHDRAWAL ON THE PERFORMANCE OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION IN NIGERIA

Nordic Journal of African Studies 13(2): 141–145 (2004)

EFFECT OF WORLD BANK LOAN
WITHDRAWAL ON THE PERFORMANCE OF
AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION IN NIGERIA
OLADIMEJI IDOWU OLADELE
University of Ibadan, Nigeria


ABSTRACT

This paper examined the effect of World Bank loan withdrawal on the performance of
extension services in Nigeria. This was because agricultural extension activities were
tripartitely funded by World Bank, State and Federal governments in Nigeria. The final
withdrawal would then have serious implications for the performance of the extension
organizations. Data were obtained from secondary sources and analyzed using t-test statistics.
The result indicates that there were sharp decline in the performance of extension activities
after the loan withdrawal and thus the question of sustainability of the Agricultural
Development Programme.

Keywords: agriculture, sustainability, World Bank


INTRODUCTION

Nigeria as an agrarian country, the production of foods and other raw materials
is a necessary ingredient for the take-off of all other sectors of the nation’s
economy. At the national level, the poor performance of the agricultural sector
became worrisome in the 1970–1980 decades, when the country's food import
bills rose form $175 millions in 1970 to $1.872 million 1982 (FMAWR & RD,
1988). As a primary production sector, agriculture itself has to be modernized in
order to achieve the much-needed increase in the productivity of the sector. This
modernization has been through high government annual investments in
agricultural research and extension services.
The Federal Government introduced the Agricultural Development
Programme (ADP) among others. The ADP is primarily an extension organ put
in place by the Federal government to advance food and fibre production in
Nigeria. The programme was launched in 1975 with the aim of accelerating food
production and increasing farmers' income through an integrated farm inputs
supply and overall development of agriculture. The state government, federal
government and the World Bank tripartitely fund the programme in order to
address the problem of agricultural production and the role extension service
play in the overall agricultural development. This makes the ADPs the main
agent of extension delivery in the new system. For the laudable objectives of
agricultural extension to be achieved, extension agents have to play a vital role

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Nordic Journal of African Studies
as they are responsible for transferring useful information necessary for
"change" to the farmers. The extension agents also perform the function of
counselling the farmers on how to make wise decisions in farm management.
The extension agents are expected to play a significant role in the extension
system, and they will be responsible in the dissemination of agricultural
technologies to the farmers, link research and farmers.
The ADP which began as a World Bank loan assisted integrated rural
development packages with the establishment of three pilot/enclaves was based
on the premise that a combination of inter-related factors comprising the right
technology, effective extension access to physical and production enhancing
inputs, adequate market and other infrastructural facilities are essential to get
agriculture moving (FACU, 1986). The activities of the first generation enclave
projects established in Funtua, Gombe and Gusau in 1975 involved in Road
construction, Dam construction, Rehabilitation of farm roads and maintenance
of the existing roads, as well as other projects that were instant success in the
localities where they were situated. With a World Bank loan backing on finance
the enclaves performed beyond expectation carrying out activities that enhanced
agriculture with farm families of about 350,000 people and the location of farm
service centres and provision of inputs useful for farm operations (FACU,
1986).
The success recorded by the pilot ADP led the federal government to
establish six more enclaves at Ayangba, Lafia, Bida, Ilorin, Ekiti-Akoko, and
Oyo North between 1979 and 1982. The vision of the ADP extended beyond the
immediate task of running the enclaves thus, useful lessons in implementing of
the new concepts were provided by the enclave’s projects paving the way for
extension of the projects to other areas and Local Government not covered by
the ADP. The demands for the benefit of ADP to be spread to all existing states
led to the installation of a generation state-wide ADPs with some of them taking
the old enclave as their headquarters. The first set of state-wide ADPs took place
in Bauchi 1981, Kano state in 1982, Sokoto state in 1983 and Kaduna state
1984. The state wide ADP projects in these states received a total sum of
N145.440m between 1981–85, it recorded 1.7 tonnes of millet 462,483 tonnes of
maize, constructed 1462km of roads, 92 dams built 184 farm service centres and
1200 boreholes was constructed. The state wide projects initially programmed to
end after 5 years of initiation was reprogrammed to last longer because of the
giant stride achievements in agricultural production by the individual states
(FACU, 1986).
The success further encouraged the nation-wide agricultural development
project, which according to Idachaba, (1988) constitutes the single largest
agency charged with the responsibility of agricultural extension in Nigeria. The
decision to speed up the appraisal process of the ADPs by using a number of
existing ADPs, provides state-wide coverage to strengthen agricultural services
and promote agricultural production. The first Multi-state Agricultural
Development Project (MSADPI) covered seven (7) stated which include
southern states of Nigeria. The second Multi State Agricultural Development

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Project (MSADP II) covered four middle Belt States, which are Niger, Gongola
and Kaduna and the third Multi – State Agricultural Development Project
(MSAP II), were an improvement on the previous MSADPs because the lessons
learnt from the earlier projects were taken into account in the design of the third
Multi-state ADP in 1989. The lessons include provisions of support services for
agriculture and provisions of logistic and technical support for the states. The
Third Multi-State included states that were not covered originally and the newly
created states.
In operational terms the funding pattern bothers on the sustainability of the
ADP such that the gradual withdrawal of the World Bank assistance would pave
way for continued existence of the ADP. Presently, the World Bank loan had
finally withdrawn from the ADP - a factor which is critical to the working
conditions and the work setting of the ADP. The effect of the withdrawal would
then have implications on the performance of the extension activities. It is
against this background that this study seeks answer to the basic research
question of what is the level of extension performance before and after World
Bank loan withdrawal.


1. METHODOLOGY

The study covers the Agricultural Development projects in Nigeria’s 36 states as
directed and coordinated by the Projects Coordinating Unit (PCU). Nigeria is
situated in the African continent in the West African coast, it is bounded in the
West by the Republic of Togo, in the East by Cameroon in the North by Mali,
Niger and Cote d’ voire. Nigeria occupies a total area of 923,000 square
kilometres with 910,770 square kilometres as arable land, a coastland of 853 km
with ecological diversities which enables the country to produce a wide variety
of crops and livestock, fishery and forestry to support its very large population
of about 120 million (NPC, 1991). Data for this study were obtained from
secondary sources (CBN, 2002, and NAERLS, 2002). The data include total
funding for extension, number of extension agents, number of farm visits,
number of farm trials & demonstrations, number of SPAT established, number
of Subject Matter Specialists (SMS), Ratio of SMS to VEA, Extension intensity
and Extension agents farmer ratio. The analysis of this result was based on t-test
statistics was used to compare the extension activities of the ADP before and
after the World Bank loan withdrawal.


2. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Table 1 presents the differences in the performance of extension activities before
and after World Bank loan withdrawal. A significant difference was recorded in
the funding of extension activities with more funds being available before the

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loan withdrawal. This suggests that the bulk of the funding must have been
through the World Bank loan and probably the lack of counterpart funding by
the state and federal governments. There is no significant difference in the
number of extension agents before and after the loan, although the number of
extension agents before the loan withdrawal was higher than the existing
number after the withdrawal. Conversely, a significant difference exists in the
number of SMS before and after loan withdrawal. The number of farm visits by
extension agents before and after loan withdrawal shows that more visits were
made by the agents before loan withdrawal and thus a significant difference
exists. Similarly, the number of SPAT established by extension agents as
method of disseminating information to farmers was significantly higher before
loan withdrawal than after the withdrawal. On the other hand, the number of
farm trials and demonstrations by extension agents were more before loan
withdrawal; there was no significant difference in the number after the loan
withdrawal.
Significant differences were recorded for the Subject Matter Specialists
Ratio and Extension agents’ ratio and the ratio of extension agents and farmers,
before and after loan withdrawal. This implies that the wide ratio becomes wider
after loan withdrawal. In the vein, extension intensity (public agricultural
extension expenditure/agricultural GDP) shows a significant difference before
and after the loan withdrawal. This reveals that fund allocation to extension
continues to decrease and thus the loan withdrawal has generated a further
reduction in government allocation to extension services.

Table 1. T-test statistics showing differences in extension performance before and after
World Bank loan withdrawal.
Variables
Groups*
N Mean SD SEM t df p
Total funding
BELW
10
18653.0
9875.44 3122.88 5.970
9
0.00
AFLW
4
9.16
0.555
No of extension
BELW
10
8674.50
1924.19
608.48 -1.671
10
0.12
agents
AFLW
4
7367.60
983.42
491.71
No of SMS
BELW
10
335.10
74.15
23.44 2.461
11
0.03
AFLW
4
270.00
24.49
12.24
No of farm visits
BELW
10
1292.20
1325.18
419.06 2.559
9
0.03
AFLW
4
215.00
9.03
39.51
No of SPAT
BELW
10
248.40
70.62
22.33 4.780
11
0.00
established
AFLW
4
121.75
28.50
14.25
Farm trials &
BELW
10
1264.50
982.33
310.64 1.606
9
0.14
Demonstrations
AFLW
4
765.00
30.00
15.00


SMS EA ratio
BELW
10
0.066
0.010
0.0033 -3.697
6
0.01
AFLW
4
0.046
0.009
0.0047
Extension agents
BELW
10
0.0015
0.00038 0.00012 2.784
7
0.02
farmer ratio
AFLW
4
0.0010
0.00028 0.00014


Extension intensity BELW
10 1.04E-07 5.43E-08 1.24E-08 -0.219
9
0.83
AFLW
4 7.56E-08 2.39E-09 1.19E-09
* BELW- Before loan withdrawal , AFLW- After loan withdrawal

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3. CONCLUSION

The paper has revealed the situations of extension services in the Agricultural
Development Programmes in Nigeria before and after World Bank loan
withdrawal. The analysis has shown that the issue of programme sustainability
after donor withdrawal is still a problem in Nigeria agriculture. If after four
years of loan withdrawal, crucial extension variables as highlighted in this paper
could experience reduction in the magnitude recorded, then the effect of the loan
withdrawal will be too enormous after a decade. Extension managers and policy
makers should evolve ways to keep the extension services afloat in reaching
farmers if the dream of food security is to be realized. It is recommended that
important activities should be sustained with available funds while alternative
funding sources are explored.


REFERENCES

Central Bank of Nigeria. 2002.
http://www.cenbank.org/Out/publications/statbulletin/RD/2002/SbulletinFin-c.pdf
Accessed December 2003.
National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services. 2002.
Field Situation Assessment of Agricultural Production in Nigeria
(1987–2002), pp. 75–92. Zaire: ABU Press.
Federal Agricultural Coordinating Unit (FACU). 1986a.
Nigeria's Brief on Agricultural Development Projects Ibadan, p. 13.
Federal Agricultural Coordinating Unit (FACU). 1986b.
A Decade of Agricultural Development Programmes in Nigeria. Ten
Years of Progress, pp. 33–34. Abuja, Nigeria: MANR.
FMAWR & RD. 1988.
Agricultural Policy for Nigeria Strategy for Implementation. January
1988, pp. 238–242.
Idachaba, F. S. 1988.
The Green Revolution: Goals for and Constraints on Agricultural
Development in the 1980s. In: Ijare, M. O. and F. S. Idachaba (eds.),
ARMT Seminar Series, pp. 18–36. Ilorin, Nigeria: NDI.

About the author: Dr Oladele O. Idowu is a lecturer in The Department of
Agricultural Extension and Rural Development University of Ibadan Nigeria. He
is currently a Research Fellow with the Japan International Research Centre for
Agricultural Sciences, Development Research Division, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305–
8686 Japan. His research interests include the dissemination of appropriate
technology to farmers in Africa. He has researched into several factors affecting
the development, dissemination and organizational setting of research and
extension agencies with a view of forging an effective linkage among
researchers, extension agents, and farmers.

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