Agricultural Production and Role of Policies for Sustainable Economic Growth in Nigeria

Abstract

The study was conducted to examine the relationship between agricultural production and the role of policies in achieving sustainable food self sufficiency and overall economic growth in Nigeria using time series data and Johansen Vector Error Correction methodology. The results of the analysis from 1970 to 2015 revealed that there was long run association between Index of agricultural production and the explanatory variables included in the model. Agricultural production was found to increase with increased in agricultural capital expenditure and fertilizer consumption, whereas interest rate, inflation rate and exchange rate impacted negatively on production during the period of the study. In the short run, however, exchange rate and credit had slightly raised agricultural production. The study found out a unidirectional causality between index of agricultural production and agricultural capital expenditure and bidirectional causality between index of agricultural production and fertilizer consumption. It was recommended from the finding that, for sustainable agricultural production and economic growth, increase in budgetary allocation for agricultural capital expenditure is imperative, the inputs and distribution policy, exchange rate policy must be favourable to producers and entrepreneurs along the agricultural value chains.