THE IMPACT OF AGRICULTURE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH IN NIGERIA

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Department of Architecture

ABSTRACT

This study examined and analysed the impact of agriculture on economic growth in Nigeria. It adopted the secondary data sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria covering the period 1985 to 2010. The study employed the modern Time Series of the Ordinary Least Square to test for the relationship between agriculture and economic growth in Nigeria. The results derived infer that there exists a significant relationship between agriculture spending and economic growth. The null hypothesis stated for this study does not hold. What this implies is that agriculture revolution is a determinant to economic growth. Thus, it is important that thegovernment placed greater emphases on this sector by increasing budgetary allocation to agriculture in Nigeria in other meet the recommendations of both Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and African Union (AU). It is recommended that  more funding be provided  for agricultural universities in the country to carry out more research on all aspect of agricultural output, such as livestock, crops, fishing and forestry, crop preservation and also establishment of more research institutes to improve seedling production, encourage the use of irrigation farming system and provision of storage facilities for seasonal products as means of improving the country’s agricultural output.  Further recommendations include the need for the Central Bank of Nigeria to come out with stable policy guideline to enable the commercial banks disburse loans to farmers at a very lower interest rate, in order to help them expand their production capacity. More so, the need for government to encourage more exportation of agricultural output as this in turn will enhance external foreign exchange earnings and improve the competitiveness of Nigerian agricultural produce in the international markets.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background to the Study

The term Agriculture is derived from the Latin words, “ager,” meaning field, and “Cultura”, meaning cultivation. This suggests that the earliest form of production agriculture was crop production (Are, Igbokwe, Asadu, Bawa, 2010; Erebor, 2003). It may be noted that Agriculture is more than crop production. It also includes animal production, processing of primary products (or value addition) and marketing of produce and products. Erebor (2003) defines agriculture as the art and science of cultivating the soil, processing crops and livestock products for man, and the process of selling excess crop and livestock.

Meanwhile, (Kricher,1997) defines agriculture in a more advanced way by saying that, agriculture or farming is the simplification of nature’s  food webs and the rechanneling of energy for human planting and animal consumption. To simplify, agriculture involves redirecting nature’s natural flow of the food web. The natural flow of the food web is the sun provides light to plants convert sunlight into sugars which provide food for the plants (this process is called photosynthesis). Plants provide food for herbivores (plant-eating animals) and the herbivores provides food for carnivores (meat-eating animals).  This simple illustration of food web provides the basis for analyzing the impact of agriculture on economic growth.