ABSTRACT

This work analyzed empirically government lending to agriculture in

Nigeria between the pre-reform and economic reform eras (1991-

2006).Chapter One of this work, gives a background of agriculture, it

shows that agriculture is the oldest industry known to mankind and it

is a source of our food and raw materials for many industries. It

could be referred as the World's primary industry. Agriculture is

essential for the expansion of employment to reduce poverty rate

and improve the income distribution in order to speed up

industrialization. However it is pertinent to note that after 49year5 of

Independence the sector has been stagnant in spite of the country's

oil wealth, despite this situation, agriculture still remains a national

treasure. The data used for the study were obtained from secondary

sources, bulk of which was collected from international and national

database over 1991-2006 and were analyzed using four functional

forms of multiple regression and a paired t-test. The results showed

that agricultural land area, agricultural output and export were

statistically significant at various levels of risk and have major

implications on government lending to agriculture in Nigeria also it

showed that the amount lent, agricultural land area, agric output,

agric import and export had higher means in the economic reforms

eras showing that agricultural policies were appropriate. The study

suggests that Nigerian government should adopt appropriate

monetary and agricultural policies to ensure stability and growth of

the sector. Also, the study suggests that government should allocate

these funds to the right people (farmers) and not to those who claim

to be farmers (impostures) whereas they collect these funds, divert

them into other sectors. Also farmers should not see these funds to

be their own share of the national cake.