Introduction Agricultural innovation plays a great role in increasing agricultural productivity. The rising food inflation resulting from food scarcity in the midst of abundant agricultural resources has become an important issue of debate in Nigeria. Most farmers in the country have limited access to modern farm inputs which contribute to low productivity and food scarcity. This paper is designed to examine the effect of agricultural innovation on food security in Nigeria. The study used modern farm inputs such as fertilizer, insecticides and farm machines (tractors and harvesters) as proxies for agricultural innovation, while agricultural productivity was used to measure food security. Methodology The study employed survey method using purposive sampling technique to collect data from small scale farmers via structured questionnaire distributed to 250 small scale farmers across communities in Yewa South Local government area of Ogun State. The study also use descriptive statistics and probit regression for data analysis. Results and discussion The from the results of the descriptive statistics shows that majority of the respondents agreed that the use of modern farm inputs will increase their farm productivity while the result from the probit regression analysis revealed that agricultural innovation have a positive but insignificant effect on food security in Nigeria. This implies that agricultural innovation is an important factor to achieving food security in Nigeria. Conclusion In conclusion, agricultural innovation has the potential of increasing agricultural productivity which will enable the country to achieve food security and therefore the study recommended that the government should partner with private individuals to make modern farm inputs available and accessible to small scale farmers in order to increase food productivity as means to ensure food security in Nigeria. Keywords Food security, Agricultural innovation, small scale farmers, modern farm inputs
Auwal Mohammed ADAMU, Lanre OLAKANMI