Abstract

More than ever before, better recognition is now being accorded the contribution of the quality of governance and leadership in appropriating resources and services that engender sustainable development. The level of official corruption tolerated by the government of a nation is a reflection of the above. However, corruption is a subject commonly avoided in social research and agricultural development discuss, despite its subterranean but serious damaging effect on development, if left unchecked. Despite the woeful performance of many African nations on the Corruption Perception Index monitored by Transparency International annually, and frequent reportage of corruption cases in the media, principal stakeholders including the research sector shy away from addressing it as a major impediment to effectiveness of development interventions. This paper juxtaposes socio-cultural perspective of corruption with the modern. It posits that unless rural sociologists and other development experts begin to pursue evidence-based social research that will properly isolate corruption as a menace; possibly worse than the over-researched factors such as poverty, food security and youth unemployment; returns to development efforts will continue to be dismal. This need may not be obvious unless research efforts on nature, magnitude of effect and safety nets are empirically reported. It also highlights recent empirical studies on perceptions on corruption in agriculture sector and need to develop reliable and valid tools to monitor occurrence and consequences with the aim of minimizing the effect of corruption and sharp practices on the effectiveness of agricultural transformation interventions. Keywords: Sharp practices, agricultural transformation, official corruption

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