AGRICULTURAL EXPORTS, EXCHANGE RATE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN NIGERIA: 1986–2025
Dr. Okechukwu Stanley Chidinna And Anyadike Uzoaku Chinonyerem
Volume 6, Issue 2, September 2026
This study examined the effect of agricultural exports and exchange rate movements on economic growth in Nigeria over the period 1986 to 2025. The study was motivated by the persistent depreciation of the naira alongside the declining contribution of agricultural exports to Nigeria's foreign exchange earnings since the adoption of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986, and the inconclusive empirical evidence on how these two variables jointly shape long-run output performance. Specifically, the study sought to examine the effect of agricultural exports on economic growth, determine the effect of the exchange rate on economic growth, and ascertain the relationship between trade openness and economic growth in Nigeria, with trade openness employed as a control variable. Annual time series data were sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin, the National Bureau of Statistics, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, and the World Bank World Development Indicators. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test revealed that the variables were integrated of mixed order, I(0) and I(1), which justified the use of the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bounds testing approach to cointegration. The Bounds test confirmed the existence of a long-run relationship among the variables. Estimates from the ARDL model showed that agricultural exports (AGREXP) had a positive and significant effect on real GDP, exchange rate (EXR) exerted a negative and significant effect on real GDP, while trade openness (TOP) had a positive and significant effect on real GDP. The error correction term was negative, less than unity, and statistically significant, confirming a stable long-run adjustment process with about 68.7% of short-run disequilibrium corrected annually. The explanatory variables jointly accounted for approximately 97.8% of the systematic variation in real GDP. The study concludes that naira depreciation has been growth-retarding over the review period, while agricultural export expansion and greater trade openness have supported growth, and recommends export diversification, exchange rate stability, and agro-export competitiveness policies.