More than three-quarters of the poor live in rural areas in Sub-Saharan Africa and the
proportion is barely on the decline (IFAD, 2011). This explains why poverty reduction
and income redistribution have continued to be a major policy issue in countries of this
region. Nigeria has a high incidence of poverty reported to be 61.2 per cent, which is
an increase of 9.6 percent from 2004 (NBS, 2012). This has been attributed to various
challenges facing agriculture which is the major source of employment and accounts for a
significant share of household income especially in rural Nigeria. The challenges takes the
form of reiterated shocks in the socio-economic, political and climatic conditions. These
factors and many more has lowered their on-farm productivity resulting in dwindling farm
income. This scenario vis-a-vis the opportunities created in the off-farm sector resulting
from the gains in some reform programmes of the government have changed the status
of a significant population in rural Nigeria from on-farm specialist to diversified rural
households. Such adjustments is expected to have an impact on the size of household
income, income distribution, and poverty status of rural households.