Abstract

The study examined the financial determinants of livestock productivity in Nigeria. Annual time series data were obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria and Food and Agriculture Organization databases from 1981 to 2019. The data were subjected to compound growth function, Augmented Dickey-Fuller test, Johansen’s co-integration test, optimal lag-order selection criteria, and vector error correction model. Based on the endogeneity of the variables in the systems equation, the study revealed that livestock ACGSF (-5.7), foreign direct investment to agriculture (-5.04), commercial banks loan to agriculture (-3.1) and livestock implicit price deflator (-11.9) would have statistically significant (p<0.01) positive impact on livestock productivity in the long-run. Findings also revealed that the error correction term for the livestock productivity model was correctly signed, lying between 0 and 1 (-0.51759) and the z-statistic (-2.6) statistically significant (p<0.01), suggesting the possibility of restoration to short-run equilibrium at an average speed of adjustment of 51.76%. It was recommended that policies on increasing livestock ACGSF, foreign direct investment to agriculture, and commercial banks loan to agriculture should be sustained by Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Government so that livestock productivity per capita per will increase to enhance national food security and increase foreign exchange earnings from the exportation of livestock products. In addition, the monetary authority should ensure that livestock inflation is checked to enhance affordability by average Nigerians.