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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Explaining de-agriculturalisation in Nigeria: theory and evidence |
Author: | Ilorah, R. |
Year: | 2000 |
Periodical: | South African Journal of Economics |
Volume: | 68 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 307-323 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Nigeria |
Subjects: | agricultural development cash crops international trade |
External link: | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1813-6982.2000.tb01171.x/pdf |
Abstract: | The growth of agriculture in Nigeria started to taper off from the second half of the 1960s. Since that time, the share of agriculture in GDP has declined to a third position after services and the oil sector in the mid-1980s. De-agriculturalization in Nigeria can in part be traced to the activities of the statutory export monopolies: producer prices received by farmers were insulated from the movement in world market prices through Commodity Marketing Boards. This paper explains the de-agriculturalization process by estimating output supply functions for Nigeria's most important export crops: cocoa, palm kernels, palm oil, groundnuts, cotton and rubber. The results confirm that primary crops exhibit negative output responses to increases in relative wages, and positive output responses to increases in producer prices. The Nigerian authorities, through the Commodity Marketing Boards and their pricing policies, were instrumental in de-agriculturalising the country. Disincentives fuelled an exodus of rural farmers into non-agricultural sectors. The result was a drastic decline in the output of agricultural exports. App., bibliogr., notes, ref. |