Intergovernmental Collaboration and Agricultural Policy Outcomes: Evidence from Nigeria’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA)

Agricultural policies and programmes are introduced by the federal, state and local governments of Nigeria in order to ensure availability and accessibility of food at all times and at the long run ensure food security. Despite the introduction of these programmes, it seems not to have produced the expected results as food insecurity problem in Nigeria is still quite disturbing. The study employed survey research methodology through the use of structured questionnaire and conduct of in depth interview from government officials in the ministry of Agriculture and farmers respectively Data collected was analysed using SPSS and Atlas.ti packages. The study revealed that the strategies were adequate and through them the federal government was able to implement the programme. It was also discovered that the storage facilities helped in preserving food but it was inadequate in terms of size. Findings revealed that the State Governments to an extent assisted the Federal Government in implementing ATA. It was discovered that some of the State Governments incorporated the goals and objectives of the ATA into the agricultural programme of the States, provided lands, improved seedlings and other equipment for farmers as well as release of the counterpart funds that States were meant to provide As regards the effect of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda on food security, the regression values rejected the null hypotheses as the result showed a positive effect (Beta = 0.516) of ATA on food security, and this effect was found to be significant (p < 0.05). These showed that the programmes induced a significant achievement in terms of food availability through ATA.