Excerpts: After a very brief overview of Nigeria and its agricultural economy, attention is directed more specifically to the role of traditional institutions in development. The agriculture of the former Eastern Region is then considered in greater detail to provide the necessary background information and setting for the analysis of the Ibo tenure system. The heart of the report attempts to relate the lbo land tenure system to the traditional institutions of Ibo society, and to indicate the effects of the modern world--via colonialism and concomitant factors--on this relationship, particularly on the incentives of the individual farmers. Based on this analysis, some suggestions are made regarding the roles traditional Institutions or appropriate new ones, as well as the government, might play in bringing the tenure system In line with the technological and economic requirements of modern agriculture. The report is based on the premise that appropriate changes, however rapid or extensive, will be effected by essentially evolutionary methods carried out with the cooperation of the villagers rather than by revolutionary methods imposed from above.