Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) was a bilateral agreement between the World Bank and the State government of Anambra state in 1975. ADP idea is an offshoot of the concept of integrated agricultural and rural development (Jibowo, 2005). The objective is to improve the levels of living and welfare of farmers. It started as an enclave in some states to a multi-stage ADP. The ADP is the implementation organ of the state ministries of agriculture and natural resources (Jibowo and Ajayi, 2011). ADP programmes consist of adaptive research, extension transfer, input supply and rural infrastructure. Operation feed the Nation (OFN) (1975) was designed to mobilize the general public into participating in agricultural production using mass and individual extension methods (Iwuchukwu and Igbokwe, 2012). Some of these strategies included subsidized production inputs, increased bank credit to farmers, establishment of commodity boards and fixing of attractive prices for agricultural produce (Daneji, 2011). Its main aim was to greatly reduce the cost of living particularly in the urban areas with everybody being able to wholly or partly feed himself (Adebayo and Okuneye, 2011). River Basin and Rural Development Authorities (RBDA) was launched in 1976. Primarily, the schemes were to harness the State's water resources by providing employment opportunities through intensified crop, livestock and fisheries production with the hope of improving the standard of living of the rural population (Williams, 1981). Their functions were to facilitate land development and ensure efficient water resource management. Even though the project has succeeded several regimes, irrigated land in Anambra state stood at 0.7% (Adebayo and Okuneye, 2011) The Directorate of Foods, Road and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI) was established in 1987 with a mandate to open the rural areas through the construction of access roads, and provision of basic amenities of modern living but due to the following reasons, the programme was not sustainable: The programme was inevitable because it has long been realized according to Otubanjo (1992) that the economic future of Anambra state depends on the development of rural areas. Therefore, the potentials of rural areas were seen to be both immediate and long term (Daneji, 2011). The idea of opening up of rural areas with feeder roads and integrating it with other parts of the State provided basis for food that could be evacuated to enhance the quantity of food and raw materials consumption. During the period of 1980-1988, 30,000km roads were constructed from the targeted 60,000km estimated by DFFRI. The poor quality of infrastructures provided by the directorate probably due to mismanagement of fund made the impact of the programme almost insignificant. However, the directorate had been criticized in the past for lack of proper focus and programme accountability (Idachaba, 1988).

STATEMENT OF THE GENERAL PROBLEM

Since the creation of Anambra state in 1991, the State Ministry of Agriculture has gone through series of changes in the areas of policy initiatives, staffing, manpower training, funding of programmes (Anambra SEEDS document, n.d). However, some of the changes did not only come from the State but as a result of possible initiatives from interventions/developmental programme introduced by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture through collaboration with donor agencies such as Africa Development Bank (AfDB), Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Japanese International Co-operation Agency (JICA), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Bank etc. To be effective, the Ministry of Agriculture should be dynamic in enhancing the capacity for administering the increasing number of programme. To be dynamic the Ministry must learn 5 from its past programmes. There have been changes in the programmes, policy initiatives, and manpower development of the State Ministry of Agriculture. Chronicling these changes are very important in articulating future policies and programmes as they provide vital information for learning. The question that arose was: what are the activities of the ministries over the past 10 years in terms of policies, programmes, staff recruitment, funding, manpower, capacity development and linkages with other actors?

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The major aim of the study is to examine agricultural development and agricultural development programs in Anambra state. Other specific objectives of the study include