Understanding the Impacts of Rural-Urban Migration on the Agricultural Economy of Nigeria: An Analytic Review

Basil U. Eze

Department of Geography and Meteorology, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Enugu, Nigeria.

Author’s Contact Detail: Email address ✉: ezebasil24@yahoo.com

Accepted October 19, 2019

The paper reviewed the impacts of rural-urban migration on Agricultural economy of Nigeria. It observed the theoretical and empirical evidences indicating that rural-urban migration impacts both negatively and positively on agricultural production. By the movement of able bodied youths from the rural to urban areas for better life, agricultural labour force is declined resulting in low productivity, high cost of labour and high price of agricultural food commodity. On the other hand, the investment of migrant’s remittances on agriculture results in improvement in agricultural production. However, it is noted that the negative impacts outweigh the positive. To curb this, it is recommended among others, the revitalization and re-integration of the input subsidization strategy of the agricultural development programme into our development policy framework to boost agricultural production, attract our youths and thereby curb rural out-migration.

Key words: impacts, rural urban, migration, agricultural economy.

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