The Nigerian agricultural sector was neglected as a result of the discovery of oil and gas in the early 70s which attracted young people to seek for jobs in the sector. Foreign reserve of the country depleted as a consequence of food imports. The paper focused on Assessment of the effect of petroleum dependency on food crops production with the specific objectives to determine the trend, determinants of food crops production and establish the relationship between output of some food crops and oil exports. Data collected were subjected to Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test for stationarity. Trend in food crops production revealed that maize, millet, sorghum, wheat and acha showed steady increase from 1985 – 1989 to 2004 – 2009 while rice production recorded downward slide from 1970 – 1984 but there was steady increase in production from 1985 – 2004. There was the existence of stationarity relationship between the selected food crops. Also, there was the existence of the same stochastic trend between selected food crops and oil exports as confirmed by error correction model (ECM). Sustained increase in the exchange rate of the naira and oil export had an inverse relationship with food crop production. Diversifying the economy was recommended to curtail food shortages in the country.