ABSTRACT:

This paper focuses on food security and why there are gaps in agricultural sector contribution to Nigeria's growth figures as often recorded. Herein it is being brought to fore through an empirical analysis the reasons for the gaps in the contribution of food and nutritional security to the overall economic development with the use of multiple regression and a background of experimenting with quadratic, linear and double logarithmic functions to analyse the variables chosen for the study.With recourse to the result of the empirical analysis done, recommendations were made on how best the agricultural sector's contribution to economic growth can be better enhanced and ascertained with emphasis on the role of the government, agricultural policy makers and planners, extension workers and farmers. It is envisaged that an understanding of the critical issues that affect agricultural sector performance in the past will aid future planning for the desired economic growth.