Agricultural Policies in Nigeria 1900–78

Under colonialism the peasantry was incorporated into the world economy and into a hierarchical system of administration which extended down to the rural areas. The incorporation restructured economic relations as both external and internal markets expanded. Improved transport and communications, labour migration and the growth of towns and mining industries increased the spread of commodity production. Commodity production was further extended by the monetisation of taxation and domestic transactions. Through the organisation of land and labour by peasant farmers, Nigeria became one of the world’s major producers, not only of palm oil, but also of cocoa and groundnuts, as well as cash crops for domestic consumption. During the depression groundnut producers increased their export output substantially, despite falls in real producer prices, in order to sustain their incomes and meet their tax requirements. Cocoa farmers kept up a relatively high rate of planting in the 1930s because, as Berry suggests, current opportunity costs and incomes were favourable and institutional features of labour employment encouraged them (Berry, 1975: 79–87). Important areas of food production like Tivland (Benue State) and Ilorin Province were hit by the depression when exports of foodstuffs to the south were reduced. In the north, commodity production weakened traditional mechanisms for overcoming food shortages. In particular, central stores of grain built up from the grain tithes were dissolved by monetisation (Watts, 1977).