Capital investment: lubricant of the engine of production process in agricultural sector – evidence from Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the effect of capital investment on the productivity of agricultural sphere of Nigeria. The productivity of the sector was proxy as the agriculture’s contribution to the GDP while commercial bank loan to agriculture, annual budgetary allocation to agricultural sector and various categories of ACGS loan scheme were proxy as investment frameworks. The data used for thus study were extracted from various bulletin of Central Bank of Nigeria and National Bureau of Statistics from 1978–2014. The long and short run relationship of these variables were estimated using the Johansen approach to cointegration and the Vector Autoregressive Error Correction Model respectively. The test of cointegration revealed presence of long run relationship among the various investment sources and categories and agricultural productivity in Nigeria. This confirmed capital as the lubricant of the production process without which other factors of production may become difficult to acquire. The short run estimates revealed total volume of loan, volume of loan to individual and volume of loan above N100,000 as variables that influence agricultural productivity in the short run, further confirming the important place of capital investment in creating jobs in agricultural sector.