Abstract

J.T. Fasinmirin and F. Braga

Global economic recession and the concomitant increase in food prices, unemployment, dilapidated infrastructures and poor industrial growth call for a concerted effort at ensuring a strong and efficient agriculture to meet the demands of ever increasing Nigerian population. No meaningful development can be attained without recourse to modern agriculture since virtually all facets of human endeavour relies primarily on products or bye-products of agriculture. This work evaluated Nigerian agriculture, the past, present and the challenges vis-à-vis the Brazilian type of agriculture that fosters sustainable development in food and energy production. The main reason for the slow agricultural development in Nigeria despite the volumes of scientific information to engender improvement was traced to poor government involvement in agriculture at the level of policy formulation and implementation. The very poor approach to the adoption of appropriate technology and scientific information in agriculture has resulted to loss of arable upland soils to the forces of erosion and floods and increase in greenhouse gas emissions through indiscriminate felling of protection trees and bush burning. Therefore, in order to bridge the wide gap in agriculture between Nigeria and other developing economy like Brazil and China, there is urgent need for a sincere and pragmatic involvement of the government and other non-governmental organizations in agriculture, with the use of modern and appropriate technology such that enough biomass could be produced for sustainable food, energy and industrial development.