Subscribe

Back

Who we are

With research staff from more than 70 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Timothy Thomas

Timothy Thomas is a Senior Research Fellow in the Foresight and Policy Modeling Unit. His research focuses on the impact of climate change on agricultural productivity. Tim’s work involves developing innovative methods for simulated climate futures and model coordination between climate, crop, water, energy, and economics.

Back

What we do

Since 1975, IFPRI’s research has been informing policies and development programs to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods around the world.

Research topics

Projects and impact

Food Security Portal

Modeling tools

What’s new

Where we work

Back

Where we work

IFPRI currently has more than 480 employees working in over 70 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

IFPRI Regional Programs

IFPRI Country and Regional Offices

Research by country and region

Subscribe

experts

Development Strategies and Governance

Opeyemi Olanrewaju

Research Analyst

Bio

Opeyemi Olanrewaju is a Research Analyst in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit, based in Abuja. He currently supports IFPRI’s Nigeria Strategy Support Program (NSSP). Opeyemi’s research interests focus on youth employment, technology adoption, agricultural finance, conflict and insecurity, and food security. He seeks to contribute to policy discussions on sustainable rural livelihoods, rural digital technology adoption, and food security.

Prior to joining IFPRI, Opeyemi worked as a Field Research Lead at with Coamana Ltd, Abuja and coordinated several field research projects in Northern Nigeria where he undertook several works on Agricultural Value chain assessment and analysis. He was also a Research Fellow of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)/International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and worked on generating evidence on Youth Engagement in Agribusiness and Rural Economic activities in Africa.

Opeyemi Olanrewaju received his master’s in Agricultural Economics from University of Ibadan and a bachelor’s in Agricultural Economics and Extension from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology.

Nigeria Strategy Support Program

Development Strategies and Governance

Publications

Resource thumbnail

Working Paper

Gender, labor, and output allocation in Nigeria's aquacultural sector

2026Nwagboso, Chibuzo; Kirui, Oliver K.; Olanrewaju, Opeyemi; Bamiwuye, Temilolu; Popoola, Olufemi; Fasoranti, Adetunji
Details

Gender, labor, and output allocation in Nigeria's aquacultural sector

Aquaculture is an important source of food and income in Nigeria, but evidence on gender differences in labor participation and output allocation remains limited. Using nationally representative microdata from the National Agricultural Sample Survey and weighted ordinary least squares (OLS) and fractional logit models, this study examines whether the gender of the aquacultural manager is associated with labor participation, production, and allocation of output to home consumption and sales. The results show that after controlling for observable characteristics, households managed by women are not less engaged in aquaculture and do not produce less than households managed by men. Instead, gender differences appear in how farms operate and distribute their output. Households managed by women employ a substantially higher share of women’s labor and allocate approximately 4 percentage points more of their output to home consumption, even after conditioning on production scale, a result that is robust across OLS and fractional logit specifications. Sales shares, however, do not differ significantly by the manager’s gender. The consumption share results may suggest that women’s management is associated with greater home retention of output, which could carry food security implications not captured by standard income-focused metrics, although the survey does not permit direct assessment of food security or nutritional outcomes. The findings suggest that policies aimed at strengthening women's participation in aquaculture should consider differences in how labor is organized and output allocation, alongside efforts to improve productivity and market participation.

Year published

2026

Authors

Nwagboso, Chibuzo; Kirui, Oliver K.; Olanrewaju, Opeyemi; Bamiwuye, Temilolu; Popoola, Olufemi; Fasoranti, Adetunji

Citation

Nwagboso, Chibuzo; Kirui, Oliver K.; Olanrewaju, Opeyemi; Bamiwuye, Temilolu; Popoola, Olufemi; and Fasoranti, Adetunji. 2026. Gender, labor, and output allocation in Nigeria's aquacultural sector. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2431. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/183852

Country/Region

Nigeria

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Western Africa; Aquaculture; Gender; Labour; Animal Production; Food Production; Consumption

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Resource thumbnail

Working Paper

Land tenure security, crop choices, and agricultural input investment decisions: Evidence from nationally representative data in Nigeria

2026Olanrewaju, Opeyemi; Kirui, Oliver K.; Popoola, Olufemi; Bamiwuye, Temilolu; Nwagboso, Chibuzo; Fasoranti, Adetunji
Details

Land tenure security, crop choices, and agricultural input investment decisions: Evidence from nationally representative data in Nigeria

Land tenure security is widely regarded as essential for agricultural investment and productivity growth. However, causal evidence on its effects across multiple farm decisions remains limited, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This study investigates how tenure security is associated with crop portfolio choices and input investment decisions among smallholder farmers in rural Nigeria. It measures tenure security using a composite index, drawn from wave 5 of the Nigeria Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA), that captures plot-level perceived security of ownership, and household reported risk of land loss, ownership security, and duration of ownership. The study employs two complementary approaches: a multivariate probit model to capture the joint and correlated nature of crop adoption decisions, and limited information maximum likelihood instrumental variables (LIML-IV) estimation to establish association between land tenure and input investment decisions. Results reveal significant but heterogeneous effects. Greater tenure security increases the probability of cultivating grains and cereals by 29.8 percentage points, while reducing the likelihood of growing legumes and pulses by 24.6 percentage points and horticulture by 11.4 percentage points respectively, which suggests a substitution effect toward grain specialization. On input investments, LIML-IV estimates indicate that a one-unit increase in the tenure security index raises organic fertilizer use by 9.93 percent, inorganic fertilizer use by 6.57 percent, and pesticide use by approximately 0.89 percent. These findings are robust to Lewbel’s heteroskedasticity-based identification strategy. Heterogeneity analysis reveals stronger investment effects among youth-headed households, while impacts on female-managed plots are statistically insignificant, pointing to persistent gender barriers. The study highlights the need for integrated policies that combine tenure formalization with crop diversification support, gender- and youth-sensitive land governance, and input market development in order to maximize the productivity gains from land rights reform in Nigeria.

Year published

2026

Authors

Olanrewaju, Opeyemi; Kirui, Oliver K.; Popoola, Olufemi; Bamiwuye, Temilolu; Nwagboso, Chibuzo; Fasoranti, Adetunji

Citation

Olanrewaju, Opeyemi; Kirui, Oliver K.; Popoola, Olufemi; Bamiwuye, Temilolu; Nwagboso, Chibuzo; and Fasoranti, Adetunji. 2026. Land tenure security, crop choices, and agricultural input investment decisions: Evidence from nationally representative date in Nigeria. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2425. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/183522

Country/Region

Nigeria

Keywords

Africa; Western Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Land Tenure; Tenure Security; Property Rights; Farm Inputs; Statistics; Land Ownership; Investment

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Resource thumbnail

Working Paper

Gender asset-ownership gap, women's agency, and its implications for household inequality: Evidence from Nigeria

2026Kirui, Oliver K.; Olanrewaju, Opeyemi; Bamiwuye, Temilolu; Popoola, Olufemi; Nwagboso, Chibuzo
Details

Gender asset-ownership gap, women's agency, and its implications for household inequality: Evidence from Nigeria

he gender asset-ownership gap remains a persistent barrier to inclusive economic growth. While women contribute significantly to agricultural production and household welfare, they continue to face constraints in accessing and controlling productive assets such as land and non-land resources. Using nationally representative panel data from the Nigeria Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) waves 4 and 5, this study examines the role of women’s productive asset ownership and empowerment in shaping household income inequality in rural Nigeria. Descriptive evidence shows persistently high intrahousehold inequality, with intrahousehold Gini coefficients averaging approximately 0.70 across survey rounds, despite a modest decline between 2018/19 and 2023/24. Regional patterns reveal particularly pronounced inequality in the North East, where income distributions are heavily skewed and most households exhibit extreme intrahousehold disparities. Employing fixed effects regressions and Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions, the analysis yields three key findings. First, women’s land share is associated with reduced intrahousehold income inequality, but this effect is modest and conditional. It becomes meaningful primarily in households where women control more than half of total household farmland, suggesting that small and fragmented landholdings offer limited inequality-reducing potential on their own. Women’s control over income and participation in agricultural decision-making emerge as additional and consistently significant drivers of reduced intrahousehold inequality. Second, women’s land share has a significant and positive effect on women’s income share, with a 10 percentage point increase in female-managed farmland associated with approximately a 0.76 percentage point increase in women’s share of household income; women’s income control and agricultural decision-making further amplify this effect. Third, Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions reveal that households where women own productive assets have significantly lower intrahousehold inequality and higher women’s income shares than those where no woman owns an asset, with differences driven primarily by disparities in women’s income control and decision-making authority rather than asset ownership alone. This shifts the policy debate from simply closing gender asset gaps to ensuring women’s assets are productive and consolidated with genuine economic agency.

Year published

2026

Authors

Kirui, Oliver K.; Olanrewaju, Opeyemi; Bamiwuye, Temilolu; Popoola, Olufemi; Nwagboso, Chibuzo

Citation

Kirui, Oliver K.; Olanrewaju, Opeyemi; Bamiwuye, Temilolu; Popoola, Olufemi; and Nwagboso, Chibuzo. 2026. Gender asset-ownership gap, women's agency, and its implications for household inequality: Evidence from Nigeria. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2422. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/183394

Country/Region

Nigeria

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Gender; Women; Assets; Inequality; Gender Inequality; Household Income; Income Distribution; Households

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Events

Women's Voice and Resilience in Nigeria
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

October 14, 2026, 8:30 – 12:45 pm

Women’s Voice and Resilience in Nigeria

Women are key agents in building resilience for themselves, their households, and their communities. Yet persistent barriers to women’s decision-making power, community engagement, political participation, leadership, and agency more broadly limit their ability to shape the policies, institutions, and community responses that affect their lives. As Nigeria confronts overlapping economic, climate, and security challenges, greater […]