AGRICULTURE

AGRICULTURE


Agriculture, including farming and herding, accounts for 26 percent of
Nigeria’s GDP and engages 3 percent of the economically active
population. Agriculture contributed more than 75 percent of export earnings
before 1970. Since then, however, agriculture has stagnated, partly due to
government neglect and poor investment, and partly due to ecological
factors such as drought, disease, and reduction in soil fertility. By
the mid-1990s, agriculture’s share of exports had declined to less than 5
percent. Once an exporter of food to nearby countries, Nigeria now
must import food to meet domestic demand. Nigeria’s major crops include
palms (used to produce palm oil), cacao, rubber, and cotton, all of which
were once exported but are now sold mostly locally. Also grown are
sorghum, millet, maize (corn), yams, and cassava, all formerly used as
food for growers but now widely sold for cash.The great majority of
Nigeria’s farm production comes from smallholders who use hoes and similar
basic tools. In less crowded areas, crops are typically planted in
rotations that let soil lie fallow and recharge. In more crowded areas, for
example near large Hausa cities and in the Igbo heartland, cropland is
typically under constant cultivation. With the notable exception of
Hausaland, women play a prominent role in farming in Nigeria.




In the last two decades the government has increased farm output—at
great cost—through major irrigation projects, massive investments in rural
infrastructure, and introduction of modern seed varieties and
chemicals. In the mid-1980s, in an attempt to stop the import of food and raw
materials that could be grown locally, the government encouraged
large-scale, mechanized farming by local entrepreneurs and international
corporations. Although large-scale, machine-based farming has increased
substantially, it accounts for only a fraction of total production.

The livestock sector is dominated by Fulani pastoralists, who use
mostly traditional forms of production. State and federal governments have
tried periodically to encourage the Fulani to form large-scale cattle
ranches, but with little success. In 1983 cattle rearing was devastated
by a highly contagious virus known as rinderpest, but by the mid-1990s
had mostly recovered. Modern poultry farming.