The Changing Face of Agricultural Education in Nigeria: Challenges and Prospects.

Introduction Education as a philosophical concept has been difficult to define. What is education? What is Education meant to do in/ and for people and how do we know that education is taking place or has taken place? These are pertinent questions which are generally asked. Answers to these questions have over the time varied from one culture to another and even in the same culture varied over time. Generally, education and the educative process remain dynamic; consequently, the expected end of education and the educative process remains for life now and preparation for future living. Education for future living is embedded in futuristic conception of the immediate culture and projection of what type of life is expected of the learners or young recruits of the society. Futuristic education has gained attention of many scholars (Toffler, 1974; Kauffman, 1976; Peretomode, 1993; Igborgbor, 2000 and Egun, 2009). One of the cultural values Nigerian education is expected to transmit is the learning, training and practice of Agriculture. Agriculture most times described as the mother of all sciences has occupied man for a very long time as he depended on it for most of his primary needs--food and shelter. Other sciences which emerged from Agriculture--Chemistry, Biology, even Physics and Mathematics including the Social Science of Economics have all reversed to influence the growth, development and practice of their parent science. Education in Agriculture and Agricultural Education has come a long way in Nigeria. Agricultural practices ab initio in Nigeria has been a way of life passed from parent to the young through imitation or what may appropriately be regarded as apprenticeship mode of teaching (Fafunwa, 1974). Common features of this type of agricultural practice remain peasantry, subsistence and most especially being dominated by aged people. This feature and it's implication long attracted the attention of Mama (1991) when he stated that there is the danger that Nigeria might face near extinction of its farming population resulting from incapacitation of her farmers by age and death. Reforms in Agricultural Education and the emerging globe In Nigeria, education in Agriculture has been on a changing gear and wheel. Agriculture in schools has gone through various names (Egun, 1984; Agwubike and Egun 1996). In all, it is the transformation of the understanding and practice of farming to meet the changing world of the time. Changes in the society, influence of Western education, technological development leading to higher demands from the industries relying on Agriculture and teeming increase in population, have all combined to redirect the course of Agriculture. Hitherto, agricultural practices were transmitted to the young ones through apprenticeship, the setting up of schools transferred greater percentage of the responsibilities in Agriculture to teachers. The need to satisfy the demands of the industries in terms of raw material needs and feeding of the teeming population became pressing in the late 1970s when food import bills started telling on the financial earnings from other sectors of the economy. In 1983, the import bill for food rose to 1.437.9 million naira (Balogun, 1986). This phenomenon has not changed as the country still imports rice for consumption and wheat for the brewery industries. To arrest this situation, government embarked on many programmes such as Operation Feed the Nation (OFN), National Agricultural Food Production Programme (NAFPP), Green Revolution, River Basin Development Authority, Rural Agro-industrial Development Programmes (RAIDS), Better Life for Rural Dwellers, Farming Support Programmes, Agricultural Development Projects (ADP) through the support of various institutional agencies with the policy of self-sufficiency in food production. Lofty as these programmes were, they suffered technical problems of inefficient supply of agricultural inputs of fertilizer, pesticides and improved livestock, low level of agricultural technology, inadequate credit facilities, infrastructural deficiency of storage facilities; socio-economic problems ranging from high production cost low producer price, low labour output and unpredictable market price; problems of organizational efficiency of management and institutional problems of implementation of agricultural policy. …