摘要：This paper empirically investigates the impact of macroeconomic policies on agricultural output specifically on crop production in Nigeria. The Multivariate Vector Error Correction approach has been applied to examine both short run and long run relationship between the series over the period of 1978-2011. The study finds a cointegrating relationship among agricultural output, government expenditure, agricultural credit, inflation, interest and exchange rates. The findings show that in the long run, agricultural output is responsive to changes in government spending, agricultural credit, inflation rate, interest rate and exchange rate. The results of impulse response functions suggest that one standard deviation innovation on government expenditure and interest rate reduces the agricultural output thus threatening food security in the short, medium and long term. While results of the variance decomposition indicate that, a significant variation in Nigeria’s agricultural food output is due to changes in exchange rate and government expenditure movements. This implies the imperative of the role played by both fiscal and monetary policy in an effort to ensure food security. It is recommended that to achieve a sustainable food security, an expansionary fiscal policy that is not inflationary should be rigorously pursued along with a realistic exchange rate that takes account of the prevailing internal macroeconomic environment rather than the dynamics of international undertones.
