Trade Policy, Infrastructure and Agricultural Output in Nigeria

Abstract

The collapse of the international price of crude oil in 2015 and its attendant negative consequences on government fiscal capacity and development efforts re-echoed the need for Nigerians to return to agriculture as the surest means of conserving foreign exchange and revamping productive capacity. Within this context, this paper deploys the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) econometric methodology to investigate the impact of Nigeria’s trade policy and infrastructural development on agricultural value added. Findings show that in the long run Nigeria’s trade liberalization policy is a disincentive to the growth of the agricultural sector value added, while key components of infrastructure (roads, telecommunications, and electricity consumption) had a significant relationship with the agricultural sector. We advocate guided trade liberalization wherein, while embracing the principles of conventional trade deregulation, the government properly articulates the weakness of the economy’s productive structure and encourage farmers and local producers to attain maturity. Specifically, the current ban on some selected food items should be consolidated, without which Nigeria would continue to be a net food importer. Goveronment might consider studying and implementing the African Development Bank’s Infrastructure Action Plan for Nigeria.