Publication: Nigeria Agriculture and Rural Poverty : A Policy Note
Loading...
Published
2014-05
ISSN
Date
2014-08-14
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The Nigerian labor force, like that of many countries in Africa, is heavily concentrated in agriculture. According to World Bank reports, the agricultural sector in Nigeria grew by about 6.8 percent annually from 2005-2009. This report focuses on the characteristics of the agricultural sector and rural households in Nigeria, and their implications for poverty. This report examines the relationships using nationally representative data from the general household survey panel (GHS), 2010-11. It was found that an elasticity of poverty reduction with respect to agricultural productivity of between 0.25 to 0.3 percent implying that a 10 percent increase in agricultural productivity will decrease the likelihood of being poor by between 2.5 and 3 percent. Agriculture in Nigeria is varied across regions, and, not surprisingly, most households involved in the sector reside in rural areas. The report is organized as follows: section one gives introduction. Section two gives brief description of selected agricultural programs and the targets of government expenditure in the sector in recent decades. Section three presents detailed profile of rural households and the composition of economic activities with a particular focus on agriculture. Section four examines the determinants of agricultural productivity, and highlights the factors (land ownership, input use, labor, plot management, land tenure, and household characteristics) most important for small-holder productivity. Section five concludes.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2014. Nigeria Agriculture and Rural Poverty : A Policy Note. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19324 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Rural Development in Haiti(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-09-01)The objective of this report is to examine the linkages between rural economic activity, food insecurity and poverty in Haiti as a means of determining the barriers to rural development. The analysis draws on a newly available set of house-hold level living standards measurement data collected in 2012 (ECVMAS). About 70.7 percent of all rural households are poor, and education levels are low with an average of 2.8 years of education for the household head. Agriculture dominates economic activity (78 percent of all households are involved in agricultural activities), although almost 25 percent of the agricultural households supplement their agricultural income by engaging also in some type of nonfarm activity. Overall nonfarm activity participation (including households that engage in agricultural activities and households that do not) is reported at 46 percent. Nonfarm activities can be related to agriculture upstream (input supply) or downstream (value-adding and processing), or they can be unrelated to the sector (retailing). This report identifies the main factors of production that correlate with increased productivity in the agricultural sector and examines the determinants of nonfarm participation, poverty and food security within rural Haiti. The information and analysis presented in this report point to two priority areas for rural development interventions in Haiti: (i) promoting diversification of livelihoods sources among rural households, and (ii) improving the performance of rural markets for inputs and outputs.Publication Can Agricultural Households Farm Their Way Out of Poverty?(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-11)This paper examines the determinants of agricultural productivity and its link to poverty using nationally representative data from the Nigeria General Household Survey Panel, 2010/11. The findings indicate an elasticity of poverty reduction with respect to agricultural productivity of between 0.25 to 0.3 percent, implying that a 10 percent increase in agricultural productivity will decrease the likelihood of being poor by between 2.5 and 3 percent. To increase agricultural productivity, land, labor, fertilizer, agricultural advice, and diversification within agriculture are the most important factors. As commonly found in the literature, the results indicate the inverse-land size productivity relationship. More specifically, a 10 percent increase in harvested land size will decrease productivity by 6.6 percent, all else being equal. In a simulation exercise where land quality is assumed to be constant across small and large holdings, the results show that if farms in the top land quintile had half the median yield per hectare of farms in the lowest quintile, production of the top quintile would be 10 times higher. The higher overall values of harvests from larger land sizes are more likely because of cultivation of larger expanses of land, rather than from efficient production. It should be noted that having larger land sizes in itself is not positively correlated with a lower likelihood of being poor. This is not to say that having larger land sizes is not important for farming, but rather it indicates that increasing efficiency is the more important need that could lead to poverty reduction for agricultural households.Publication Rwanda Poverty Assessment(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-04)The last poverty assessment for Rwanda was conducted in 1997. Three years after the genocide, the country was characterized by deep and widespread poverty, rock-bottom health indicators, and pervasive hunger and food insecurity. In real terms, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was lower than it had been in 1960. In real terms, the economy quadrupled between 1995 and 2013. Enrolment in primary school is near universal and infant and child mortality are among the lowest in Africa. A large part of the population, including the extreme poor, is covered by public health insurance. This poverty assessment focuses on the evolution of poverty and other social indicators over the past decade (2000-1 and 2010-11). Using data from a variety of sources, mainly the three household living standards surveys (EICV) and the three demographic and health surveys (DHS) conducted during the past decade, the poverty assessment documents trends in monetary and non-monetary dimensions of living standards and examines the drivers of observed trends. The aim of the poverty assessment is to provide policy makers and development partners with information and analysis that can be used to improve the effectiveness of their poverty reduction and social programs.Publication Livestock and Livelihoods in Rural Tanzania : A Descriptive Analysis of the 2009 National Panel Survey(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-06)In 2006, the government approved a national livestock policy based on the premise that the livestock industry has an important role to play in building a strong national economy and in the process, reducing inequalities among Tanzanians by increasing their incomes and employment opportunities. This report presents an analysis of rural livelihoods in Tanzania, with particular emphasis on the livestock sub-sector, smallholder farmers' living standards, and issues with access to productive assets. The report attempts to answer basic questions such as: to what extent is keeping livestock an activity of the relatively better off, and to what extent are poorer households able to engage?; how does the role of livestock vary with different levels of income and well-being?; how are livestock holding size and structure associated with differences in welfare, gender, and geography?; how important are input and output markets for small livestock keepers?; what form does this market participation take in practice, and to what extent?; and to what extent do the non-income services of livestock (for example, manure, draught power) benefit crop production? The study is based on data from the Tanzania national panel survey (NPS) collected by the national bureau of statistics (NBS) from October 2008 to October 2009 as part of the first wave of a nationally representative living standards survey. Data was collected using household, agricultural, and community questionnaires in which information was obtained at the individual, household, plot, and community level The report is organized as follows: section one gives background information; description of the data is presented in section two, in section three the authors analyze the composition of rural income, household endowment of human capital, and access to infrastructure and assets, in order to gain an understanding of the level of wellbeing in the rural space. A descriptive analysis of the characteristics of small rural livestock owners and their production practices is provided in section four, which highlights the heterogeneity of the households engaged in the livestock sector and presents evidence of the sector's importance to rural livelihoods in terms of both income and consumption. Section five concludes with a discussion of key results and their implications for policy and further analysis.Publication Sri Lanka - Agricultural Commercialization : Improving Farmers’ Incomes in the Poorest Regions(World Bank, 2009-05-12)The issue of regional differences in development has moved to the center of the development debate in Sri Lanka, partly after the release of regional poverty data. For the past many years, there have been significant and increasing differences between the Western province and the rest of the country in terms of per capita income levels, growth rates of per capita income, poverty rates, and the structure of provincial economies. The structure of the report is as follows: chapter two looks at the poverty/growth/agriculture nexus in the poorest regions of Sri Lanka. It presents data on poverty and growth in the poorest provinces, especially Uva and Sabaragamuwa, and provides an analysis of factors associated with the rural poor. Chapter three provides an overview and brief discussion of the Government's agricultural policies and programs. Chapter four identifies constraints that restrict farmers' incomes in the four poorest provinces. It presents results from extensive stakeholder consultations carried out in these provinces. These results are complemented with findings from the 2005 rural investment climate assessment to identify some of the general constraints in the agriculture sector in Sri Lanka. Chapter five presents the findings of an agricultural resource audit of small-scale farmers in the poorest regions that analyzed production, poverty and market data. The chapter identifies income opportunities, in particular for a few agricultural products with high income potential for poor farmers, whose production could take off with appropriate interventions. This chapter also provides a value chain analysis of these products and identifies product-specific constraints and gaps in the current policy portfolio that could potentially limit the Government's capacity to support the whole range of needed interventions. Drawing on the findings in previous chapters, chapter six presents' recommendations. One set of recommendations is specific to the three products with high income potential and focuses on effective interventions for their production. Another set consists of cross-cutting recommendations that would further improve performance in the targeted areas but also benefit agricultural production more broadly. Chapter seven sums up and concludes.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Just Transition(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-01-30)Recent calls on central banks and financial regulators to use the tools at their disposal to help mitigate the negative economic and social impacts of climate policies are based on several false analogies between the energy transition and the “just” energy transition. The same false analogies explain why voluntary efforts to incorporate just transition considerations into private financial decisions and products copying approaches from climate finance have so far failed to gain traction. None of the above invalidates the just transition as a political aspiration. However, only the government has the legitimacy and authority to identify the regions or sectors where the negative impacts of the energy transition are to be mitigated, determine the extent and instruments for this mitigation, and adjust them over time in line with shifting social preferences. This is an essentially political task that cannot be delegated to technocratic agencies. Nevertheless, within the parameters established by the government, central banks and financial regulators can play a supporting role by ensuring accurate data on the social impact of the energy transition, enforcing disclosure requirements, sensitizing financial firms to just transition–related risks, and raising awareness among financial firms. However, they must be cautious not to overstep their mandate, and remain mindful of the limitations of their toolkit and of the risks and potential unintended consequences of their actions.Publication Public and Private Investments in Innovation Capabilities : Structural Transformation in the Chilean Wine Industry(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-07)This paper assembles novel data on the Chilean wine industry to investigate the role of investments in knowledge capital on sales growth in domestic and international markets. The study uses archival data collected from the Government of Chile to compile and categorize public expenditures and programs supporting the Chilean wine industry over the period of 1990-2012 into investment in different types of knowledge capital. These spending categories are related to industry-level sales growth. The paper finds that the most important correlate is spending on research and development. The study also uses data from a new survey of Chilean wine firms to capture information on firm-specific investments in knowledge capital. The findings show that investments in collaboration capital, in particular hiring foreign consultants, as well as participation in international wine fairs are the strongest correlates of growth in export sales, while spending on aspects of branding (local advertising and brand design) are the strongest correlates of domestic market sales growth.Publication Identification of an Expanded Inventory of Green Job Titles through AI-Driven Text Mining(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-19)This study expands the inventory of green job titles by incorporating a global perspective and using contemporary sources. It leverages natural language processing, specifically a retrieval-augmented generation model, to identify green job titles. The process began with a search of academic literature published after 2008 using the official APIs of Scopus and Web of Science. The search yielded 1,067 articles, from which 695 unique potential green job titles were identified. The retrieval-augmented generation model used the advanced text analysis capabilities of Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4, providing a reproducible method to categorize jobs within various green economy sectors. The research clustered these job titles into 25 distinct sectors. This categorization aligns closely with established frameworks, such as the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Information Network, and suggests potential new categories like green human resources. The findings demonstrate the efficacy of advanced natural language processing models in identifying emerging green job roles, contributing significantly to the ongoing discourse on the green economy transition.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Electricity Connections and Firm Performance in 183 Countries(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-10)This paper presents new data on electricity connections for businesses in 183 economies. The data cover information on procedures, time, and cost that a small or medium size business with a moderate electricity need has to invest to obtain a new electricity connection. The study finds significant variation in the time and cost to obtain such an electricity connection across countries. In low-income countries, for instance, it takes on average nearly twice as long as in high-income countries to connect a new customer to electricity, while the cost associated with a comparable connection is 70 times higher. The study finds that the poor performance of distribution utilities in low-income countries cannot only be explained by differences in income levels. The overall level of bureaucracy appears to be another important factor. The study also finds the data to be correlated with existing measures of the effectiveness of the electricity sector, suggesting that the hurdles related to obtaining an electricity connection mirror other problems in the sector, such as the quality of electricity supply and the incidence of bribe payments. Finally, the study finds that electricity connections affect firm performance. Simpler and less costly electricity connection processes are associated with better firm performance, in particular in industries with high electricity needs, such as manufacturing motor vehicles.