Sustainable Food Supply: The Interplay between Population Growth and Land Productivity Changes as a Pathway to 2030 and Beyond for Nigeria

Context and Background: Sustainable food supply is a critical global challenge, particularly in developing countries like Nigeria, where rapid population growth and limited land resources create a complex interplay with far-reaching implications. Thus, there will be a need to increase food production to keep pace with the population increase.

Goal and Objectives: This study seeks to analyse the interplay between population growth and land productivity changes in Nigeria as a pathway towards achieving sustainable food supply by 2030 and beyond, in line with Goal 2 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which is aimed at “ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture.

Methodology: Data on land productivity and Nigeria's population and Population growth for 1961-2022 was sourced from the Economic Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture (ERS-USDA, 2023). The data was analysed using descriptive statistics such as mean; standard errors and graphs; the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) was used to explain the interplay between population growth and land productivity changes in Nigeria.

Results: The results of the population estimates revealed that the model successfully converged and significantly (p<0) explained 98.3% of the variance of the endogenous variable that is, the population at an intercept of -2500.7. Of the hypothesized variables, year (1.212), cropland (9.14E-4), irrigated (0.283), and pasture (0.003). These findings imply that the future population would increase in each period until the series becomes explosive because, the coefficient of the lagged variable of population is positive and greater than 1, which is in contrast with the assumptions of the ARIMA model which should be less than 1. Thus, the study recommends adopting precision agriculture techniques such as GPS mapping, soil analysis, crop health monitoring, and automated irrigation to maximize crop yields, reduce costs, and transform farming practices in Nigeria.