Citation: Iziga, J.I.; Takagi, S. Food Consumption–Production Adjustments to Economic Crises under Credit Constraints in Nigeria. Sustainability 2022, 14, 8955. https:// doi.org/10.3390/su14148955 Academic Editors: Isabel Novo-Corti, Diana-Mihaela T , îrcă and Laura Mariana Cismas , Received: 31 May 2022 Accepted: 19 July 2022 Published: 21 July 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). sustainability Article Food Consumption–Production Adjustments to Economic Crises under Credit Constraints in Nigeria Jude I. Iziga * and Shingo Takagi Faculty of Economics and Business, Hokkaido University, Kita 9 Nishi 7, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-0809, Japan; stakagi@econ.hokudai.ac.jp * Correspondence: izigaj@gmail.com Abstract: Poverty and food security risks are increasing in resource-reliant African countries such as Nigeria. Resultantly, policymakers have attempted to use agricultural policy reforms to boost productivity and increase income. However, macroeconomic instabilities complicate agricultural transformation. Consequently, farm households try to diversify food production to mitigate shock- induced nutrition losses. However, credit constraints disrupt the planting of different crops required for adequate diets. This study investigates food security performance during Nigeria’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda. It examines whether credit-constrained households adjust food consumption and production differently from credit-unconstrained families. The aim is to uncover the nutritional implications of the adjustments and evaluate the changes such a linkage has undergone during the commercialization initiative. While credit-unconstrained households diversified food production to mitigate food security risks, credit-constrained households were unable to do so. A policy that improves credit access for farm-input purchases appeared to increase food security. However, macroeconomic shocks disrupt the smooth implementation of the policy. Resultantly, policy decisions on the designation of a financial-support scheme that approves credit to households for operating off-farm enterprises must be considered. The business profits could complement farm income to improve family nutrition. Part of the profits could again be plowed back into farm-input needs to enhance agricultural commercialization. Keywords: agricultural policy; agricultural transformation; consumption–production linkage; dietary diversity; credit constraint; sustainable economic growth 1. Introduction Given the growing population of farm households in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), agri- cultural transformation is one of the top strategies for achieving sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. Modernizing the agricultural sector is vital to diversifying the SSA economies and increasing food production [1]. The growth in agricultural produc- tivity stems from the presence of enabling structural policy reforms and agricultural sector investments [2]. Policymakers in SSA countries have prioritized support for agricultural commercialization in recent years [3], especially in Nigeria given its large farm households and high poverty rates. The two most recent agricultural sector initiatives in Nigeria include the 2011–2015 Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) and the 2016–2020 Agricultural Promotion Policy (APP) [4,5]. Implementing the policies requires fund transfers from the federal government, through the state and local governments, to the households in more rural areas of the countries. Public revenues from natural resources, particularly the oil and gas rents, which fluctuate with the prices of oil and gas in the world’s market [5], are used for the implementation of such policies. This suggests that countries’ macroeconomic and fiscal conditions are significant for modernizing farm production and marketing. Sustainability 2022, 14, 8955. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148955 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability