About 30% of Nigeria's labour force is employed in agriculture but the country still spends more than US$12 billion a year importing food. The Nigerian Government is seeking to reduce the imports of food. With a high birth rate and many small farms, this may be difficult to achieve.

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (May/June 2015). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. [2] the number of births per 1,000 of the country's population per year
2. [1] the number of births per 1,000 of the country's population
3. [1] a high infant mortality rate
4. [1] people having a high number of children not expecting all of them to live
5. [1] a lack of financial support for the elderly
6. [1] people having children to support them in old age
7. [1] women marrying at a young age
8. [1] giving them longer time in which to have children
9. [1] a young population
10. [1] with a high proportion of people of child bearing age
11. [1] a lack of availability/willingness to use contraception
12. [1] resulting in more births than planned
13. [1] not many women working
14. [1] not restricting the number of children they have in order to follow a career
15. [1] a lack of education
16. [1] reduces knowledge of contraception/cost of bringing up children/proportion of women working
17. [1] government incentives to have children
18. [1] high state benefits would increase willingness and ability of people to have children
19. [1] larger farms may produce higher output
20. [1] this will increase total cost
21. [1] larger farms may be able to take advantage of economies of scale
22. [2] examples of economies of scale available to farmers e.g. buying (purchasing seed in bulk), technical (using e.g. combine harvesters), managerial (specialist workers e.g. shepherds) up to
23. [1] will lower average costs
24. [1] larger farms may experience diseconomies of scale
25. [1] examples e.g. worse labour relations
26. [1] will increase average costs
27. [1] larger farms are likely to have higher fixed and variable costs
28. [1] but their average fixed costs are likely to be lower
29. [1] as these costs will be spread over a higher output
30. [1] their average variable costs may be lower due to economies of scale/or higher due to diseconomies of scale
31. [1] a reduction in imports may improve the trade in goods/trade in goods and services balance
32. [1] this will improve the current account position/reduce a current account deficit
33. [1] this may reduce a country's debts
34. [1] avoid downward pressure on the exchange rate
35. [1] spending on imports may be replaced by spending on domestically produced products
36. [1] this would increase the country's output/cause economic growth
37. [1] this would increase demand for labour
38. [1] raise employment/reduce unemployment
39. [1] increase incomes and living standards
40. [1] fewer imports may enable infant industries to grow
41. [1] may protect declining strategic industries
42. [1] may prevent dumping
43. [1] explanation of what is meant by dumping
44. [1] imports of capital goods/raw materials may decline
45. [1] these might be cheaper/lower quality than domestically produced capital goods and/or raw materials
46. [1] this will raise costs of production
47. [1] make the country's products less internationally competitive
48. [1] lower output/reduce economic growth
49. [1] worsen the current account position
50. [1] raise unemployment
51. [1] fewer imports may reduce choice
52. [1] reduce competition
53. [1] may raise prices
54. [1] lower quality of people's lives
55. [1] exports may be falling by more than imports
56. [1] so current account position may be worsening
57. [1] quantity of imports may be falling but value of imports may be rising
58. [1] if the reduction is caused by protectionist measures
59. [1] this would reduce benefits of free trade