INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

During the colonial era, the abundant natural resources in the rural areas were exploited without any attempt to develop such areas. Development projects were concentrated in the few urban centers and any extension of such development effort was to facilitate their administrative convenience. The rural areas served as sources of cheap and most often forced labor. Dike (1992), need that though the road and river ordinance, the warrant chiefs were empowered to order communities to provide up paid compulsory labor for the construction and maintenance of access roads and other services. The different attempts to development culminated in the 1976 local government reforms which main proclaimed objective was to bring government operating at the grass roots, a development process that would improve the lot of the rural populace were triggered off.

Rural sector in Nigeria, public policy was consistently employed and this “increased agricultural development (Hall, 2000, OnokerHoraye and Okafor, 1991 and Tom (1991). The assumption was that increase in agricultural output would lead to rural income and improvement in the livelihood of people especially the Nsugbe Anambra East Anambra state individuals. However, Okpula (1980) disagrees and argues that the prevailing public policy emphasis its increased in agricultural output and productivity as the main goal of rural development, is at variance with the communities perception of which constitutes their development. It is obvious from the above position, that the rural dwellers do not share government as enthusiasm for agriculture development. They frequently do not adopt the type of rural development proposals, programmes and projects that are exposed in the official natural development programmes.