Abstract:

The process of economic transformation and development calls for the participation of all interest groups in an economy hence this study set out to examine the effect of public and private sector finances on the development of the agricultural sector in Nigeria. The study employed an econometric procedure with the Ordinary Least Square regression technique. R-squared of 0.9921, obtained implied that 99.2 per cent of the variation in the agricultural sector real gross domestic product was explained by the six independent variables in the model. Loan granted to farmers under the agricultural credit guarantee scheme, commercial banks’ credit to the agricultural sector and Federal Government recurrent expenditure allocated to the agricultural sector impacted the sector positively, while the Federal Government capital expenditure allocated to the sector did not. It is recommended that all the policies put in place by the Monetary and Fiscal Authorities to encourage flow of funds to the agricultural sector be sustained and that the Federal Government should overhaul its capital budgetary processes and provisions so as to make a positive impact on the development of the sector, particularly since crude oil price has been on the decline in the last four years impacting Nigeria’s economy negatively.