Rural Road Infrastructural Challenges: An Impediment to Agricultural Development in Idanre Local Government Area of Ondo State, Nigeria

Abstract

Accessibility to the rural area by road is a key factor in achieving Sustainable Development Goals in pursuance of optimal survival these areas. Various rural development policies instituted in Nigeria to alleviate the condition of rural dwellers and to sustain agricultural development, yet the smooth accessibility desires of several rural areas impaired by poor rural road infrastructure. The resultant effect of this is low agricultural productivity in rural areas and food insecurity. Rural communities in developing countries are mostly disconnected from the major roads and public transport services that should provide them access to the economic and social opportunities in cities. To this end, the research examined how road infrastructural challenges have impeded the development of agriculture in Idanre Local Government Council Areas, Ondo State, Nigeria. A structured questionnaire was purposively and randomly administered to collect data from a total of 200 farmers across 20 villages in the study area. Analysis of data for the information retrieved from the respondents were carried out with aid of descriptive statistics while stepwise regression examination was done to test the hypothesis. Findings revealed a high cost of transportation and irregular transport services as a result of the poor state of the roads in the study area have hindered effective agricultural development. Results also indicated that motorcycles were the dominant means of transportation in the LGA. This among others resulted in an increasing rate of post-harvest loss because of the restrictive capacity of motorcycle and high cost of transportation. The study recommended the construction and rehabilitation of dilapidated roads infrastructure to enhance agricultural development in the study area.

Rural Infrastructure Access and Household Welfare in Ogun State

“…Construction of Infrastructural Index (Component Measure of Access to Infrastructure): A common infrastructural index (INF) was constructed for all the types of infrastructure (Ahmed and Hossain;and Ashagidigbi et al, 2011, Africa Development Bank, 2020 to determine how developed the rural communities were with respect to the level of infrastructure access. Transportation cost to the location of the nearest assessed infrastructure was used because most of the respondents could not give precise distance to the infrastructure (Obayelu et al, 2014;Olorunfemi, 2020). The INF was obtained as presented in the equations below:…”

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Effects of Infrastructural Development on Marketing of Agricultural Products in Kwale County, Kenya

“…According to the Ministry of Communication and Transport in Tanzania (2003) and African Development Bank Group (2013), remote road network and public sector vehicle costs are normally characterised by a bad road situation and increased travelling charges. Furthermore, Olorunfemi and Adenigbo (2017) postulates that most of the communities living in the remote parts of Africa are faced with poverty and are characterised by low education. The Matuga sub-county people are also part and parcel of this category.…”

Factors inhibiting Sustainable Knowledge Management in Nigeria

“…This is because annually there is an urgent need of over 100 billion dollars to address the infrastructural gap in Nigeria [2]. Evidence of infrastructural deficit can be found in previous studies in [3][4][5][6][7]. This cuts across different sectors in housing, road network, aviation, ports, healthcare, and other public facilities.…”