Infrastructure and Sustainable Food Production in Nigeria: An Empirical Study of the FAO Methodology and Keynesian Theory on Government Spending

Abstract

In a 2016 methodology working document, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) proposed agriculture-specific and agriculture-supportive government expenditures. This study adopted some of the proposed categories of government spending to establish the effects of infrastructure on food security in Nigeria. Time series (1960–2020) on relevant variables were sourced from the WDI database provided by the World Bank, and the Food and Agriculture Organization Statistics (FAOSTAT). Data analysis was based on descriptive statistics and the Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS). The included series satisfied the major conditions for applying the DOLS model. Agricultural output (AGO), per capita income (PCI), and per capita food production (PCF) were used as indicators of food security. The models’ tests conducted have P-values greater than 5 per cent, which shows that the models were fit. The result shows that investment in agriculture (β = 0.0995), transportation (β = 0.1067), health (β = 0.3407), and education (β = -0.3877) significantly influenced agricultural output at the 5 per cent level of significance, while investment in agriculture (β = 0.1079), health (β = 0.2868), and education (β = -0.2671) significantly influenced per capita food expenditure at 1 per cent. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge as it empirically confirms an improvement to Keynesian theory in that there is a direction in which public spending can impact food security. Emphasis should be on agriculture-related infrastructure or farmers’ livelihoods, otherwise, the government’s efforts on public spending may not positively impact food security. The study recommends a proper and efficient policy mix for providing agriculture-related infrastructure.