Nigerian agriculture by nature is essentially traditional and subsistence. Limited access to credit facilities has been implicated as hinderance to the growth and productivity of the agricultural sector. Thus, the need arises for the provision of credit to the majority of Nigerian farmers. To increase farmers' access to credit from formal sources, the Federal Government of Nigeria established the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF) in 1977, with the purpose of increasing the level of bank credit to the agricultural sector through the provision of guarantee in respect of loans granted by any bank for agricultural purposes. This paper set out to investigate the relationship between agricultural production and formal credit supply in Nigeria. The methodology employed in the study involved the development and estimation of three simple regression models relating agricultural output with formal credit while holding other explanatory variables constant. Findings of the paper indicates that formal credit is positively and significantly related to the productivity of the crop, livestock and fishing sectors of Nigerian agriculture. Based on the findings it is recommended that government should continue to encourage the expansion of formal credit sources to reach as much farmers as possible.

Abstract

Over the years several authors have attributed the decline in Nigerian agricultural production to the neglect of the agricultural sector that resulted from the discovery of crude oil, what is known as the oilboom factor. This paper set out to find answer to the question: was agriculture really neglected as a result of the oilboom? The study took a historical perspective to trace the path of capital expenditure allocations to the agricultural sector in Nigeria. Secondary data on planned capital expenditure allocation to the agriculture sector before and during the oilboom period; and the budget estimates of capital expenditure allocations to the Agriculture, Water Resources, Health, Education and Defence sectors in Nigeria during the oil boom period 1977-1983 were sourced and used. Graphic descriptive statistics and the one-way analysis of variance technique were used to achieve the objectives of the study. The Tukey's Multiple Comparison method w as employed to determine which mean(s) differ, in both cases, in the one-way analysis of variance tests conducted. The empirical findings of the study indicate significant increase in the quantity of capital expenditure allocation to the agriculture sector during the oilboom period; and that more capital expenditure was allocated to the agriculture sector than was allocated to either of Health, Education or Defence sectors in Nigeria during the oilboom period. Thus, it concluded that the decline in agricultural production in Nigeria was, statistically, not attributable to the neglect of the agricultural sector resulting from oil boom. The reason could be as a manifestation of Dutch Disease, Natural Resource Curse, Rent Seeking phenomenom, or something else.

No abstract

The study set out to test the Malthusian doctrine which stated that “population, when unchecked, increased in a geometrical ratio, and subsistence for man in an arithmetical ratio”, using Nigeria as a case in hand. Data on human population and food production in Nigeria (1961- 2018) were collected from FAOSTAT and used. Geometric Progression and Arithmetic Progression were applied on the collected data to generate second sets of data that fitted geometric and arithmetic progression, respectively. Descriptive statistics and the student t-test technique for comparison of means of independent samples were used to achieve the objectives of this study.  Results of the Student’s t-tests (calculated t-value of 0.693 and computed p-value of 0.490 for food production; calculated t-value of 4.700 and computed p-value of 0.000 for population) lead to the acceptance of the null hypothesis for food production and rejection of the null hypothesis for population growth. The mean difference of 28899193.34 indicates that the mean actual population data (102501137.84) was statistically and significantly higher than the mean expected population data (73601944.50) over the study period. It was concluded that (i) food production in Nigeria over the study period increased in arithmetical progression in accordance with Malthusian doctrine, suggesting that the series of agricultural policies and programmes the Government in Nigeria since independence, barely raised agricultural food production in Nigeria beyond subsistence level, and (ii) population in Nigeria over the period of the study increased at a rate much greater than Malthusian doctrine’s geometrical progression, at an exponential rate, suggesting that the policies on population, implicit and explicit, enacted in Nigeria since independence have not succeeded in significantly slowing down the rate of growth of population in Nigeria. The study recommended further studies into the relationship between demography and economic growth in Nigeria.