Research and technology innovation, food security and economic growth in Nigeria: Implications for agripreneurs and policymakers

Abstract

Population growth and more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic, have increased the number of severely food insecure people in sub-Saharan Africa. Food security is one of the most prominent tasks facing the global environment especially in Asia and Africa. With the increase in the population, drought, floods, disease outbreaks, poor farm network systems, water poverty, weak political and economic institutions, selfish leadership and economic challenges in Africa, the food security crisis appears to be an important issue that will require strategic and urgent attention. There is no doubt that traditional ways of farming are not sustainable in Africa because the land available for agriculture reduces as the population increases over time. Investment in new technologies is one of the strategies to improve farm yields and livestock outputs, and reduces the risk and negative effects of weather. The role of agripreneurship, in this context, towards ensuring food security cannot be underestimated. This study is quantitative research which analyses the historical and current time series data in order to predict the future event using inferential statistics. This study investigates the relationship between food security (FST), agricultural research and technology innovation (RTI) and economic growth (GDP) in Nigeria between 1980 and 2018. The study utilizes cointegration and causality tests to determine the long run relationship among the variables and their causal directions so as to know which variable caused the others. Understanding this relationship among the variables and causal direction are vital to making appropriate suggestions for policy makers. The results of the Johansen cointegration test reveals an existence of a long run relationship between the three series (FST, RTI, GDP). The results of vector error correction model indicate a short run causality from GDP to FST and RTI, respectively. Furthermore, the results of long run causality show two-way causality between FST and RTI, one-way causality from GDP to FST and RTI without feedback. This implies that when the economic activities improve in Nigeria in the short run, this engenders agricultural technology innovation deployment in the country which facilitates food security in the long run, while food security also facilitates agricultural technology innovation. The two-way causality between RTI and FST established in this study implies that increase in agricultural research investment would improve food security and vice versa. Thus, government and other private players such as agripreneurs in agricultural sector should intensify their spending in agricultural research on the one hand, and government should also provide appropriate incentives to motivate private stakeholders for agricultural R&D investment on the other hand.