By Kevin Lambert

After growing very slowly for most of human history, the world’s population more than doubled in the last half century, reaching six billion by 1999. Seventy-seven million people are added to the world population each year, and almost all of them will be born in today’s developing countries.

In 2000, approximately 40 percent of those living in less developed countries were in urban areas. The percentage of urban Africans said to be living in very poor conditions is huge, over 78%.
Rapid urbanization has led to mega-cities; huge, near-ungovernable masses that have huge "peri-urban" slums growing on their boundaries like lichen. A United Nations report has revealed that an estimated one billion people across the world are living in slum conditions. The executive director of UN-Habitat, Dr. Anna Tibaijuka, in an interview with the BBC, said, "We should all be ashamed to have these unplanned neighborhoods in our cities."

There is a limit to what the state can actually do. One look at the bright lights and fast pace of urban living can knock away the teachings of a thousand generations like bowling pins. But Akwa Ibom’s managers are trying to salvage at least what can be saved of the pastoral life, or maybe even re-invent it. Asked to describe his greatest personal challenge in a recent interview, Governor Victor Attah replied, "How to balance things. The two things you have to balance are investment in and for the future, and providing food now."

Keeping them down on the farm

One of the governor’s priorities is the reversal of urban migration, and he has come up with a number of programs to entice young people to forgo the flash for a career with a history.

"We are making sure that we take certain amenities to the rural areas," Governor Attah says. "By opening up farm roads, we are encouraging agriculture. We have several schemes for agriculture, and the plantation schemes are working so well that the federal government asked us to come and share that and explain them."

Akwa Ibom has palm trees like Appalachia has coal. Palm oil and seeds can be made into dozens of high end products. But oil palms produce less as they age, and so must be replaced on an ongoing basis. This can run into real money, and Akwa Ibom’s farmers – who largely work at the subsistence level - could not afford replacement costs. So the agriculture ministry is replacing them.

"We said, ‘would you let us cut down just a section, and replant it, and gradually rehabilitate your plantation with new, young plants? And we will spend the money to do this, maintain it with the correct agriculture practices, and after five years—palms will yield in about three, four—after five years, you pay us 100 Naira (about $0.77) per tree per year,’ " the Governor says.

Governor Attah acknowledges that the fee is "a token," but says, "It’s necessary for the success of the program that the farmers feel they have a financial stake in it."

Akwa Ibom’s commissioner for agriculture and natural resources, Dr. Trenchard O. Ibia, presides over programs designed to help small farmers increase food production now, and to increase cash crop production over the long term. These include such programs as the provision of better seed and small animal stocks, and training students in specialized agricultural programs through what is called the Integrated Farmer Scheme. This is a bold plan that has so far graduated 300 students. It is a plan designed to train young Africans for a career in agriculture, to give rural youth a chance to stay home.

The plan provides fertilizers on a timely basis and assists with credit expansion, which includes micro-credit. The planners look at each project carefully, and, unlike many development project managers, have a keen sense of what can and cannot be done. "We’ll do arable crops, fruit farms, poultry and piggeries, but no tree crops, because tree crops take much longer to begin to yield," Governor Attah says. "All we need is for the local government to give them a minimum of three hectares, and we give them the money."

Dr. Ibia says, "The key is to look at the potential, then look at what people are doing, and try to improve that."