This document discusses sustainable rural roads development and maintenance in Nigeria and its role in improving agricultural productivity. It notes that most rural roads in Nigeria are in poor condition, lacking maintenance. This poses challenges for farmers in transporting crops to urban markets, leading to food spoilage and losses. The document recommends several approaches to address this, including establishing a rural roads database, dedicating budgets for regular maintenance, generating road maintenance funds through tolls, and strengthening government agencies responsible for rural infrastructure development and maintenance in order to improve rural livelihoods and agricultural productivity.

1. SUSTAINABLE RURAL ROADS DEVELOPMENT AND
MAINTENANCE AS CATALYST TO IMPROVE
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY IN NIGERIA
By
E.O. Atanda1, P. O. Eleta1 and U. Ovbiagele2
1. Department of Agricultural & Bio-Environmental
Engineering Technology, School of Engineering, Auchi
Polytechnic, P.M.B. 13, Auchi, Edo State, Nigeria
e-mail: olugbenga.atanda@yahoo.com
2. Department of Electrical/ Electronics Engineering
Technology, School of Engineering, Auchi Polytechnic,
P.M.B. 13, Auchi, Edo State, Nigeria
e-mail: uma4hon@yahoo.com

2. Outline of Presentation
• Introduction
• Overview of Rural Roads Condition and the plight
of rural farmers in transporting farm harvests on
rural roads to urban centres for sale in Nigeria
• Importance of rural roads to the economic
development of Nigeria
• Some problems militating against evacuation of
farm harvests by rural farmers in Nigeria
• Suggested Approaches aimed at ensuring
sustainable rural roads development and
maintenance in Nigeria
• Conclusion

3. INTRODUCTION
• Rural areas in Sub-Saharan Africa are characterized
by poor roads (Okoko, 2010).
• In virtually all the cases, these roads are perpetually
in a state of disrepair.
• Yet it is on these deplorable roads that the rural
dwellers trek daily to obtain water, firewood, farm
produce and also to secure services from such
places as markets, schools, hospitals, etc.
• Rural farmers also rely on these poorly maintained
roads to transport their farm harvests that are
meant for consumption in the urban centres. Rural
roads, therefore, play very significant role in the
development of rural areas.

4. • In Nigeria, as in other countries of Sub-Saharan
Africa, rural transport constitutes a major sub-
set of the rural infrastructural system, and
contributes in no small measure to the overall
development of the rural areas.
• Rural roads connect settlements to urban
market centres. It is therefore axiomatic to
state that most of the rural areas in Nigeria lack
all season roads, portable water supply,
electricity while peasant and subsistence
agriculture is still in vogue in different parts of
the country (Nwosu, 1987).

5. • Nigeria is said to have one of the highest densities
of rural roads in the Sub-Saharan Africa with a
national average of 85meters of rural road per
square kilometer while individual state values
range from below 30 to 500meters (World
Bank,1997).
• Despite this, Nigeria still spends a smaller share of
its budget on its road network than the average
for Sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank, 1997) .One of
the major consequences of the low spending is the
lack of reliable and well maintained rural road
system, leaving about 75percent of the rural roads
currently in very poor condition.

6. • Most of the roads are seasonal and useful only
during dry seasons. Head porterage is still the
predominant method of moving goods both
within farms and the nearest roadside or
waterside pick-up points (Adewunmi, 2005).
• Inadequacy, low vehicular traffic and where
there are vehicles, they are rickety while low
investment and outright neglect constitute major
rural transportation problems.
• The result of this is that farm harvest cannot get
to the urban centres at the appropriate time,
thereby resulting into high rate of spoilage and
decay at times.

7. • Idachaba (1990) observed that rural roads,
grassroots based as they are, play the major role
indirectly linking high priority food production
areas with food deficit urban markets, and
thereby reducing the huge post-harvest losses
which currently discourage farmers from
responding to new economic opportunities and
price incentives.
• Farmers have been known to get discouraged
when there is no efficient rural roads and good
market for their farm harvests. Some of them
prefer to scale down their production capacity to
make sure supply does not exceed demand at any
point in time (Atanda, 2004).

8. • Rural roads provision, maintenance and
sustainability forms an intrinsic part of rural
development strategies serving as a mechanism
and catalyst to improve agricultural productivity
in Nigeria.
• This paper, therefore, takes a look at the rural
roads condition and the plight of rural farmers
while transporting their farm harvests on rural
roads to urban centers for sale.
• The paper also discusses the importance of rural
roads to economic development of Nigeria. It also
identified some problems militating against
evacuation of farm harvests by rural farmers in
Nigeria.

9. • Several approaches aimed at ensuring
sustainable rural roads development and
maintenance through government intervention
as well as public and private partnership
initiative in order to improve the present
situation of rural roads network in Nigeria are
also presented in the paper.

10. OVERVIEW OF RURAL ROADS CONDITION
AND THE PLIGHT OF RURAL FARMERS IN
TRANSPORTING FARM HARVESTS ON RURAL
ROADS TO URBAN CENTERS FOR SALE IN
NIGERIA
The condition of rural areas of Nigeria is more
pathetic since they are highly deprived of
infrastructural facilities especially when
compared to the urban areas (Akinola, 2007).
They are often characterized by lack of basic
infrastructures like pipe borne water,
electricity, good roads and other related
infrastructural services.

11. • Rural roads form the basis for transformation and
communication and it constitute the most critical
infrastructure in the rural area and by extension
national development drive.
• It is just reasonable to conclude that majority of
the Nigerian populace live in the rural areas with
agriculture as their main occupation.
• The poor state of rural roads, apart from having
undesirable effects on passengers and traffic flow,
also result usually in substantial loss of perishable
agricultural produce and high cost of
transportation, marketing inefficiency and high
cost of foodstuffs and other products derived
from rural areas (Ogunsanya, 2002) .

12. • According to Adesanya (1997), only about 5
percent of rural roads in Nigeria could be said to
be in good condition. He further explained that
the bad condition of these rural roads is
compounded by the poor responses to repairs
and delays in rehabilitation by the responsible
government agencies.
• The poor state of rural transportation system in
the country do not only lead to high vehicle
operating cost but also result in sharp increases
in the prices of food items.
• Oni and Okanlawon (2006) reported that the
neglect of roads in the country multiplies the cost
of repairs at the end of every season and also
sharply increase the cost of vehicle maintenance.

13. • Filani (1993) observed that most rural roads in
Nigeria are unpaved, narrow, circuitously
aligned and with narrow bridges, full of pot
holes and many of them remain passable only
during the dry season.
• Moreover, some of the vehicles that ply on
rural roads are not road worthy and are also
unlicensed.
• Consequently, they are generally slow,
irregular, inefficient and unsafe (Aloba, 1983).
Motorized transport costs are usually very
high during the rainy season because of poor
roads and incessant breakdown of vehicles.

14. • Adeniji (1983) reported that Governments at all
levels in Nigeria have not been paying enough
attention to provision and maintenance of rural
roads due to the problems of low volume of traffic,
periodicity and seasonability in demand for
transport in rural areas.
• Thus, government rarely see provision of rural
roads as a priority even though attempt at solving
rural neglects had been the concern of the
Nigerian Government over the years through such
attempts like the Operation Feed the Nation (OFN),
National Acceleration Food Production Programme
(NAFPP) and Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural
infrastructure (DFFRI). All these efforts failed to
improve rural development in whatever form.

15. IMPORTANCE OF RURAL ROADS TO THE ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT OF NIGERIA
• Improve the mobility of the farmers, farm inputs and
outputs. Farmers will also have easy access to inputs
like fertilizers, improved seeds, chemicals, etc. They do
not have to depend on the extension officers. Also easy
evacuation of farm harvests will further reduce post-
harvest losses.
• It encourages and promotes interaction among farmers
thereby enabling them to organize themselves better,
for example, formation of co-operative societies for
their common goal.
• It will enhance rural productivity as well as
strengthening the socio-economic, cultural and
political fabrics and processes in the rural
communities.

16. • It enables farmers to have access to markets and
will generally reduce the cost of food to the
consumers while increasing farmers’ income. This
is so because improved access will lower
transportation cost and make the farmers
produce at lower costs. A typical chain for
marketing of food crops may involve five or six
middlemen before getting to consumers in cities
like Lagos, Kano, Benin and Ibadan. Improved
access will eliminate some of these middlemen.

17. SOME PROBLEMS MILITATING AGAINST
EVACUATION OF FARM HARVESTS BY RURAL
FARMERS IN NIGERIA
In Nigeria, rural farmers’ experience catalogue of
rural transportation problems (Atanda, 2004)
which include the following:
• Presence of bad roads or total lack of roads which
makes distribution or evacuation of farm produce
to market very difficult.
• Some rural roads in Nigeria may be rendered
useless during the rainy season.
• The numbers of motor vehicles plying such rural
roads are inadequate because of the bad rural
roads condition, high cost of vehicles, vehicle
spare parts, etc.

18. • High cost of transportation due to bad roads and
inadequate vehicles and other means of
transportation.
• High cost of transport increases farmers’ cost of
production and farm produce prices.
• Most farms in rural areas are not linked to roads
and this eventually leads to wastage of farm
harvests.
• Inadequate diversification of means of
transportation of farm harvests, for example
inadequacy of rail networks which is very
essential for the transportation of agricultural
goods.

19. SUGGESTED APPROACHES AIMED AT ENSURING
SUSTAINABLE RURAL ROADS DEVELOPMENT AND
MAINTENANCE IN NIGERIA
To alleviate poverty, there is the need to accelerate
the pace of rural development through improved
mobility which requires better transport
infrastructure and services.
The contributions of efficient rural roads network to
agricultural and economic development in Nigeria
cannot be under-estimated. Rural transportation,
however, goes beyond just the provision of roads
but the manner of provision, usage and
maintenance carried out on them matters a lot.

20. • There is the need to collect data on rural roads
which are inadequate and mostly in bad states in
all the rural areas across the federation. This is
because existing data sources in lieu of primary
data collection can provide an excellent means of
defining rural road problem and also a framework
for development and maintenance of this
transport system.
• There should be a well established data-base
consisting of rural road networks, development,
maintenance, transportation system, etc by the
various local government councils in Nigeria. This
is a necessary condition for ensuring sustainable
rural transportation system in Nigeria.

21. • Proper and regular rural roads development and
maintenance should be put in place by the
various local government councils in Nigeria.
Whatever reform option adopted by the states
and local government councils, rural roads
development and maintenance should continue
to enjoy some level of adequate budgetary
allocation and subsidy by them.
• There should be a clear policy for the
construction and maintenance of rural roads in
Nigeria which must involve the local government
councils and rural communities.

22. • There should also be a National body to develop and
enforce policies on rural roads development and
maintenance in Nigeria. It is also suggested that with
the scrapping of agency like Directorate of Food, Roads
and Rural Infrastructure (DFFRI), the Federal
Department of Rural Development under the Federal
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development should
be strengthened to perform this important function.
• Government should ban heavy trucks from plying some
rural roads. In the alternative, Government should
construct heavy duty all weather roads in most rural
areas linking the cities all over the nation.
• Agricultural and Civil Engineers should be well exposed
to alternative methods of construction which will equip
them to be able to analyze technological alternatives
and select the best mix to various rural environments
whenever road construction and maintenance is
carried out.

23. • The recently created Federal Roads Maintenance
Agency (FERMA) should also extend their services
to the rural communities as most rural areas are
noted for bumper production of agricultural
produce desirable for ensuring food security in
Nigeria.
• Government should generate funds in form of
tolls on good major roads that leads to cities,
such funds can then be use to develop and
maintain rural roads networks across the
federation.

24. CONCLUSION
• The development and maintenance of rural roads and its
resultant effect on the rural communities’ economy
cannot be over emphasized.
• This is because an extensive, adequate and efficient rural
feeder road network serves as one of the channels for
collection and exchange of farm produce, services and
movement of peoples including dissemination of
information.
• Indeed, the development and maintenance of rural roads
will form the most valuable aspect of rural development
strategy as provision of rural roads is not only necessary
for rural development but the manner in which these
roads are operated and maintained to guarantee future
use are equally important.
• All hands must therefore be on deck by all the three tiers
of government in Nigeria to collaborate with various rural
communities to achieve this laudable goal.

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