Agricultural Output and Poverty Rate in Nigeria

Abstract

This study examines the effect that agricultural output has on the rate of poverty in Nigeria from 1981 to 2023. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) and Phillips-Perron (PP) tests were used to test the stationarity of the series. The findings show most of the variables were stationary at first difference with exception of one, which was stationary at level. In order to examine the long-run effect of agricultural output on poverty rate, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model was used, whereas the ARDL error correction mechanism (ARDL-ECM) was used to determine the speed of adjustment to long-run equilibrium. The results show that crop output and livestock output have negative and significant effect on the rate of poverty in Nigeria. This implies that growth in crop and livestock production would result in a reduction of poverty rate. Forestry output on the other hand, has positive influence on poverty rate. The results, however, indicate that fishery output does not have significant effect on poverty rate in Nigeria. Overall, the results showed that agricultural output has significant and negative long run effect on the rate of poverty in Nigeria. The study therefore recommended policies that aimed at improving crop, livestock and forestry production as a strategy for poverty reduction in Nigeria.