ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author argues that the pervasive influence of modernization on the agricultural transformation policies is fundamentally responsible for the poor performance of agriculture. It adopts a radical political economy approach in analyzing the dialectics of agricultural transformation. The analysis accords a central place to modernization and shows how it intersected with factors like imperialism, dependency, state, class, gender and the environment to create and sustain the agricultural crisis. The main characteristics of agricultural modernization are monocropping, mechanization, hybridization, fertilizers and pesticides, large-scale and capital-intensive farms. The integrated rural development programs were squarely situated within the paradigm of agricultural modernization. The five major integrated rural development programs that were launched in Nigeria are the National Accelerated Food Production Program, the Operation Feed the Nation, the Green Revolution, the Agricultural Development Projects, and the Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructures. The River Basin Development Authorities sought to create environments conducive for year-round large-scale capitalist farming.
