This study examined the nexus between agricultural sector development and employment in Nigeria for the period 1970 to 2022. The Johanson Cointegration technique was used to establish the cointegrating relationship among the variables. It was revealed that long run relationship exists among the variables in the estimated model. The results of the Error Correction Mechanism showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between agricultural sector development and employment in Nigeria. It is concluded from the findings that agricultural sector development has a positive and significant impact on employment in Nigeria. The study recommends that there should more public-private partnership in the agricultural sector so that the sector can be developed rapidly through the supply of inputs, finance, infrastructures, market access among others to provide the linkages to the industrial sector so as to create the required employment in agricultural, industrial and other sectors of the economy. More funds should be injected into the agricultural sector to modernize the sector so that it can be made attractive to unemployed graduates to go into small and medium scale enterprises which is regarded as a veritable source of employment generation globally. Government should ban food import, backed by right policies to encourage local food production and processing of our local agricultural products.
Keywords: ECM, Employment, Granger Causality, Nigeria, agricultural sector development
