Food Crop Production, Hunger, and Rural Poverty in Nigeria's Benue Area, 1920-1995

Food Crop Production, Hunger, and Rural Poverty in Nigeria's Benue Area, 1920–1995 is a history of three interconnected themes: hunger, food crop production and rural poverty, covering the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial epochs through which the present Benue State in Central Nigeria emerged. The book deals with food and rural development policies and the challenges of successive colonial and post-colonial governments, as well as the corresponding methods of survival by the people. The book also explains why hunger exists in the midst of high levels of food production and why food producers tend to suffer deprivations and abject poverty. Benue State food producers are a good example of the existence of hunger in the midst of food production and rural poverty in Nigeria. However, the book's most important conclusion is that further development relies on the agricultural resources upon which the people of Benue State have depended throughout their history.

This book is part of the African World Series, edited by Toyin Falola, Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin.