Economic and Financial Review
Publisher
Central Bank of Nigeria
Keywords
Prices, Agriculture, Agricultural Export, Commodities, Nigeria
Abstract
The study examines the role of price incentives in expanding agricultural commodity exports. Using the concept of efficiency, based on the theory of opportunity cost, nominal and effective protection coefficients (NPC & EPC) were estimated for cocoa, coffee, cotton, palm kernel, palm oil, rubber and soyabean. Their world market prices served as the efficiency benchmarks in order to determine the pattern of incentives or disincentives to the Nigerian agricultural export sector. The NPC values obtained ranged from 0.47 for cotton to I. I 8 for soyabean pre-Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and during the SAP the values ranged from 0. 63 to 2.14 for the respective crops. This result confirmed that incentives improved substantially for export crop production during the SAP. The result of the EPC analysis complemented that of the NPC which indicated that incentives were more in favour of the production of soyabean, a non-traditional export crop in Nigeria. Consequently, the study concluded that the programme for boosting industrial and export crop production recently launched by the Federal Government should emphasise the production of soyabean in order to diversify our agricultural export base, along with palm produce and rubber particularly now that oilseeds and rubber have better prospects in the world market.
Publication Title
CBN Economic and Financial Review
Issue
1
Volume
34
Recommended Citation
Evbuomwan, G. O. (1996). An Empirical Analysis of the Prices of Nigeria's Agricultural Export Commodities. CBN Economic and Financial Review. 34(1), 501-522.