Rural community development encompasses a range of approaches and activities that aim to improve the welfare and livelihoods of people living in rural areas. Rural community development is important in developing countries like Nigeria where a large part of the population is engaged in farming. Most of these efforts to promote rural community development are led by 'experts' from outside the community such as government officials, non-governmental organizations, and private companies.
The final report of the 1996 World Food Summit states that food security "exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life".
Kare-Dadin Kowa, an agrarian rural community in Kebbi State, recently received a 98.8KW solar hybrid mini-grid power plant by the Federal Government to boost their trade, and develop their community. According to The Nation Nigeria, The newly inaugurated solar hybrid mini-grid plant would provide clean energy to 483 residential buildings, schools, places of worship, health centers, 82 commercial buildings which would also serve over 3,000 inhabitants of Kare-Dadin Kowa community.
The impact of this development on food security is that it boosts food production and increases the quality of food production. According to the District Head of the community, “We are a small fishing and agricultural community. So, this is a major development as new business opportunities in milling, processing, storage and fishery will now become a reality for our industrious people.
Also, on the 26 June 2019, Crop2Cash launched CashCard - the farmer’s bank - in Offa to provide cashless transactions to farmers in rural areas. Offa village is the commercial center of other agrarian communities (over 130) under Lagelu LGA of Oyo state. CashCard enables smallholder farmers in rural Nigeria to receive digital payments and build their financial identity. With CashCard, smallholder farmers can have access to farm inputs – agro-chemicals, improved seeds, machinery, etc – on credit.
The impact of this development on food security is that it protects the livelihoods of smallholder farmers thereby creating new opportunities for farmers to be more efficient at all levels of the value chain. It also ensures adequate access by the poorer sections of the society to the food they need to live healthy lives.
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