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Agricultural Production and Social Networks in Northern Nigeria

Relationships between agricultural input suppliers and output sellers are an important component of agricultural production in rural Nigeria. Inputs are often difficult to access at critical periods of the crop cycle and few storage options requires rapid marketing of output after harvest. This paper uses a 20 year panel (1988-2008) with detailed information on both agricultural production and agricultural networks to examine the effect of different types of network relationships (input suppliers and output sellers) on the expansion of the household’s profit frontier and technical efficiency. Households that have more agricultural links produce more and have higher input utilization rates across the two survey rounds. I find that increased agricultural links has no direct effect on farm profits, but additional agricultural links lower the technical inefficiency of the production process thereby increasing the effectiveness of input mixes in production which raises profits indirectly. Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Practical Sampling International for assistance in collecting these data, especially Taofeeq Akinremi, Moses Shola, and Tokbish Yohannah. Christopher Udry generously provided public access to these data. Esteban Quinnones and Sheu Salau provided excellent research assistance in the field and preparation of the data. All errors remain the responsibility of the author (a.dillon@cgiar.org).