ISSN 2360-7971
Abstract
Accepted 27th January, 2014
In the last thirty years, the performance of the agricultural GDP in Nigeria has been decimally, declining from 64 percent share of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1960 to 44 percent in 2010. In response to this scenario, this study evaluated the determinants of growth of agricultural sector in Nigeria and proffered recommendations based on research findings. Time series secondary data were used. The study adopts regression analysis on micro and macro economic variables to find the significant relationship between the different variables chosen. The result shows that 49% of the variations in the dependent variable were explained by the explanatory variables. The result further showed that agricultural labour, infrastructural development and total factor productivity had positive relationship with agricultural GDP (AGR); while agricultural land, inflation rate and agricultural GDP in the previous period were negatively related to agricultural GDP. The results concluded that agricultural labour, infrastructural development and total factor productivity were factors that contributed to Agricultural GDP in Nigeria. The study advocated for equipping labour with high yielding variety seeds and fertilisers and to initiate programs that offer scholarships and assistantships to deserving agricultural entreprenuers to study agricultural related courses in Nigeria higher institutions. The study further recommended vigorous pursuit of infrastructures that promote massive agricultural production and improvement in nigerian agricultural resaerch institutes.
Keywords: Agricultural GDP growth, regression analysis, agricultural labour, Infrastructural development, Inflation rate, scholarship.