AGRICULTURE CREDIT AND AGRICULTURAL EXPORT VALUE IN NIGERIA

Nigeria’s agricultural export value performance has remained below its potential due to inconsistent funding and macroeconomic instability. As a result, the aim of this study was to examine the impact of agriculture credit on agricultural export value in Nigeria between 1986 and 2024. The study collected annual time-series data from CBN and the applied the econometric technique of Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. The ARDL long run result showed that, trade credit in terms of credit to private sector, loan and advances to agricultural sector and loan repayment have long run positive relationship with agricultural export value in Nigeria during the period under review. The ARDL short run result showed that, credit to private sector, trade credit extended by exporters and trade credit received by exporters have positive relationship and significant impact with agricultural export value in Nigeria over the period. Based on the findings, it was recommended that, government through financial institutions such as deposit money banks and bank of industry should expand agricultural credit facilities in order to boost agricultural export value in the short run, which could increase the growth of the Nigerian economy in the long run.