Impact of Human Development Indices on Agricultural Output in Nigeria

The study examined the impact of human development indices on agricultural output in Nigeria between the periods of 1990 and 2021. Specifically, this research estimated the impact of gross national income per capita (GNI), life expectancy at birth (LEB), death rate (DRT), government expenditure on health (GEH) on the agricultural subsector’s outputs proxied by the value of crop output (CRP), the value of livestock output (LIV), and the value of fisheries output (FIS). The times series data were sourced from the World Development Indicators, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bulletin, and the Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme. The study used Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) method in the estimation of the models. The result from the ARDL analysis disclosed that at 5 percent level, GNI, LEB, and GEH all significantly influenced agricultural outputs in Nigeria in the short run. DRT on the other hand, had significant effect on LIV alone in the short run. The long run result indicated that at 5 percent level while LEB and DRT significantly determined changes in the level of agricultural outputs in Nigeria, GNI and GEH only had long run influence on FIS under the evaluation period. The study however recommended that government’s investment in human development should match that of physical development in Nigeria because indices of human development have been shown to have an impact on economic production.