Food Security, Government Spending, and Economic Growth in Nigeria

This article investigated food security, government spending, and economic growth in Nigeria by adopting time series data from 1980 to 2021.Trend analysis and the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model were employed in the study. The GDP growth rate, food production index, and other relevant variables were dependent and independent variables, respectively. While the food production index, government capital spending, and inflation rates showed a negative relationship with economic growth, food security, government recurrent spending, and gross fixed capital formation had a positive impact on growth in the long run. In the short run, all the independent variables, except the food production index, exhibited a significant impact on economic growth. While the food production index and inflation rate showed a negative relationship with economic growth, other explanatory variables had a positive impact on growth on the short-run horizon. Consequently, the study recommended that the government should formulate policies that would increase its spending on the agricultural sector. This would stimulate food production output, which would enhance the growth of food security in Nigeria.