Agricultural Economics

This paper examined vulnerability to poverty of households among rural households in South West Nigeria using primary data from a two-wave panel survey (lean versus harvesting periods). Results showed that on the average there is a 0.56 probability of entering poverty a period ahead in the region and relatively high poverty rates were associated with much higher vulnerability while low poverty rates were associated with considerably low vulnerability. Vulnerable households are mostly large sized with high number of dependants and characterized by under aged or old, female headed, widowed household heads. They are mostly engaged in farming as their primary occupation, have no or low educational attainment and are landless. The findings underscore the centrality of social protection policy mechanisms as potent poverty reduction tools and necessary policy interventions to reduce consumption variability through reducing exposure to risk or improving the ex post coping mechanisms of the vulnerable.

Motivated by the recent global economic crisis, this paper simulated the impact of a rise in the price of imported food on agriculture and household poverty in Nigeria using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and the Foster, Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) class of decomposable poverty measures on the 2006 social accounting matrix (SAM) of Nigeria and the updated 2004 Nigeria Living Standards Survey (NLSS) data. Results show that a rise in import price of food increased domestic output of food, but reduced the domestic supply of other agricultural commodities as well as food and other agricultural composites. Furthermore, a rise in the import price of food increased poverty nationally and among all household groups, with rural-north households being the least affected by the shock, while their rural-south counterparts were the most affected. A major policy implication drawn from this paper is that high import prices in import competing sectors like agriculture tend to favour the sector but exacerbate poverty in households. Thus, efforts geared at addressing the impact of this shock should strive to balance welfare and efficiency issues.

Poverty is a major limiting factor in farmers' production which influences their attitude towards risk. There is little empirical evidence on the connection between poverty and risk attitudes of farmers in north-central, Nigeria. So study was carried out t to examine linkage between poverty and farmers' risk attitude in Nasarawa state, Nigeria. Over all 120 respondents were interviewed through well structured research tool, randomly from ten villages (12 respondents per village) of Keffi Local Government Area of Nasarawa state using two-stage sampling procedure. Out of which 107 were useful for analysis. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Foster Greer Thorbecke poverty measures, safety first model of risk determination and Tobit regression analysis. At the poverty line of N2, 455.40 per capita per month, 43.93% of the respondents in the area were poor. Further, 58.9% of farmers in the area were risk averse. Household size, membership of organization, po...

Inconsistence in the use of trade policy reform has characterized Nigeria's rice imports over the years and little is known about the welfare implications of these reforms on the Nigerian households. This study uses a static computable general equilibrium model to assess the effect of rice trade policies of an import ban, 80% tariff increase, 5% tariff reduction and 0% rice import tariff on the welfare of households in the country. Simulation results show that no rice trade policy improved social welfare, although producing households' incomes increased under protectionist policies of ban and tariff increase. All households lost welfare with 0% tariff while only the major producing and consuming households lost welfare with the 5% reduction in tariffs. The least loss to social welfare also occurred in this scenario, hence this policy was recommended for adoption in order to minimize welfare losses to households. 165 tariff on rice imports hurts all households' welfare and national welfare most. However, the least loss in national welfare occurred with a small reduction in rice import tariff. A lesser number of households were also hurt with this policy. Thus, the major policy implication of the study's findings is that the small reduction in tariff should be adopted as Nigeria's rice trade policy for rice importation as this option is least welfare-reducing for the national welfare. In line with this, welfare improving policies targeted at the disadvantaged households, especially the rural north households, would also be needful to cancel out welfare losses.

Understanding relationships, opportunities and bottlenecks in a commodity value chain is crucial to the determination of the contribution of a commodity to economic development. The objective of the study was to Map Plantain Value Chain in order to identify the key players, their roles, value added along the chain as well as constraints. Personal Interview and Focus group discussions were used to collect primary data from the actors along the chain. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Value added analysis. The study identified conventional and peculiar actors such as Input suppliers, Producers, Farm-Gate Assemblers, Market-Arena Assemblers, Insitu Wholesalers, Transit Wholesalers, Processors, Retailers and Consumers. The study revealed tremendous dominance of the Midstream sector in the commodity value chain and that Value addition, volume of trade and geographical coverage indices were highest at the midstream sector. The result revealed also that Plantains were traded mostly in unprocessed form and there was low level of export of the commodity. Producers sold most of their product (55%) at the farm gate. Horizontal flow of the commodity was prominent among the actors. Value added at processing level was estimated at ₦111/kg of processed product. The cross cutting constraints among the actors were inadequate credit accessibility, high transportation cost, inadequate market access and inadequate storage facilities amongst others. The study recommends intervention in the area of linking actors in the value chain to prospective markets for them to benefit from the various activities.

Poverty is a major limiting factor in farmers' production which influences their attitude towards risk. There is little empirical evidence on the connection between poverty and risk attitudes of farmers in north-central, Nigeria. So study was carried out t to examine linkage between poverty and farmers' risk attitude in Nasarawa state, Nigeria. Over all 120 respondents were interviewed through well structured research tool, randomly from ten villages (12 respondents per village) of Keffi Local Government Area of Nasarawa state using two-stage sampling procedure. Out of which 107 were useful for analysis. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Foster Greer Thorbecke poverty measures, safety first model of risk determination and Tobit regression analysis. At the poverty line of N2, 455.40 per capita per month, 43.93% of the respondents in the area were poor. Further, 58.9% of farmers in the area were risk averse. Household size, membership of organization, poverty status of farmers, housing index, primary school education and access to credit were significant determinants of farmers' attitude towards risk. Policy options geared towards ensuring physical, social and human capital development should be formulated to reduce poverty and enhance farmers' risk taking ability.

This paper investigates how remittances flow to Nigeria from household migrants correlate with farm production efficiency of the left behind in rural areas using the Living Standard Measurement Survey data set. We applied the production frontier model from which efficiency scores for two groups of farmers were recovered: migrant households and non-migrant households. We subjected the efficiency scores to Anova and stochastic dominance analyses. Mean production efficiency for migrant households was signifcantly higher at p < 0.05. Across all percentiles, migrant households had higher technical efficiency level compared to households with out migrants. Thus rejecting the hypothesis of negative production efficiency effect of migrant remittances flow to farm households. While policy programmes should promote labour mobility and remittances, it supposes a complementary policy that promote labour saving farm technologies.