Drivers of Agricultural Foreign Direct Investment and Its Impact on Food Production in Nigeria

Abstract

Foreign Direct Investment is one of the growth promoters in many sectors of the economy including the agricultural sector. The study analysed the drivers of agricultural FDI and gauge its impact on food production in Nigeria. Annual time series data spanning from 1975 to 2017 were obtained from Central Bank of Nigeria, National Bureau of Statistics and World Bank’s Development Indicators Database. Descriptive analysis, stationarity analysis with Augmented Dickey Fuller and Philip Perrons’ unit root tests, co-integration test with Autoregressive Distributed Lag Bound test, Autoregressive Distributed Lag-Error Correction Model analysis were done to obtain results for the study. ARDL-ECM results showed that GDP at P≤0.1, government expenditure on agriculture at P≤0.1, inflation rate at P≤0.01 and real exchange rate at P≤0.01 levels of significance were the significant determinants of FDI inflow to agricultural sector in Nigeria in the long run model. In the short run, GDP at P≤0.1, government expenditure on agriculture at P≤0.1 and real exchange rate at P≤0.01 levels of significance were the significant drivers of Agricultural FDI in Nigeria. The speed of adjustment (ECM (-)) was 102.74%. Agricultural FDI also had significant long run and short run impact on food production in Nigeria at 1% and 1% levels of significance, respectively. The study concluded that FDI inflow had significant positive impact on agricultural sector in Nigeria. It was recommended that government should promote policies that are directed at employing all promotional resources to attract more FDI inflow to the agricultural sector so as to boost its productivity and contribution to the overall economy of Nigeria.