Sustainable Agricultural Production in Degraded Oil Producing and Conflict Prone Communities of Niger Delta, Nigeria

Abstract: The rich alluvial soil of the delta coupled with copious web of fish and salt water bodies provide the necessary incentives for the people of Niger Delta of Nigeria, who are predominantly farmers and fishers. The ecological devastation occasioned by oil exploration has rendered farming and fishing which are the main occupations of the rural people of this region, useless. The paper seeks to highlight the extent of the environmental degradation in the Niger Delta region, determine the efforts of the Oil Companies in remediating the degraded farmlands, and make recommendations for a sustainable agricultural development in the Niger Delta. It identifies three (3) states, and 31 environments which are severely polluted with oil, noted the effects of oil production on agricultural production and attempt to describe some of the remediation activities carried out by some of the oil companies in this region and concludes that, to achieve sustainable agricultural production, continuous remediation of the degraded environment, Special agricultural intervention by the three tiers of government, youth education, encouragement and motivation and supply of subsidized inputs to the real farmers were necessary.