Agriculture is a major sector of the Nigerian economy, accounting for up to 35% of total employment in 2020. According to the FAO, agriculture remains the foundation of the Nigerian economy, providing livelihood for most Nigerians and generating millions of jobs. Along with crude oil, Nigeria relies on the agricultural products it exports to generate most of its national revenue. The agricultural sector in Nigeria comprises four sub-sectors: crop production, livestock, forestry, and fishing.
Nigeria has a total agricultural area of 70.8 million hectares, of which 34 million hectares are arable land, 6.5 million hectares are used for permanent crops, and 30.3 million hectares are meadows and pastures.
Maize (corn), cassava, Guinea corn (sorghum), groundnut (peanut) and yam are the major crops farmed in Nigeria, with 70% of the households engaged in crop farming. In the south, 7.3% of the households practice fishing, while 69.3% of the households own or raise livestock in northwest Nigeria.
In the third quarter of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the sector grew by 14.88% year-on-year. Crop production remains the largest part of the sector. During the third quarter of 2019, the agriculture sector contributed 29.25% to the overall real GDP.Nigerian Gross Domestic Product Report Q3 2019, National Bureau of Statistics. https://www.nigerianstat.gov.ng/pdfuploads/GDP_Report_Q3_2019.pdf Between January and March 2021, agriculture contributed 22.35% of the total gross domestic product.
The sector is undergoing transformation through commercialization at the small, medium, and large enterprise levels.Olomola Ade S. (2007) “Strategies for Managing the Opportunities and Challenges of the Current Agricultural Commodity Booms in SSA” in Seminar Papers on Managing Commodity Booms in Sub-Saharan (:Africa: A Publication of the AERC Senior Policy Seminar IX. African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), Nairobi, Kenya However, there are several factors in the Nigerian agricultural sector that may prevent its growth, including a land tenure system that limits access to land, the country's level of irrigation development, limited adoption of research findings and technologies, costs of farm inputs, the amount of access to credit allowed by the management of specialized institutions established for the development of the agricultural sector, the manners of fertilizer procurement and distribution, storage facility effectiveness, and the amount of access to markets.
More recently, changes in average temperatures, rainfall, climate extremes, and the growing infestation of pests and related diseases precipitated by climate change pose a challenge to the integrity of the country's agriculture system. This is coupled with a dependence on rain-fed agriculture, which has made the sector vulnerable to seasonal conditions.
These all contribute to agricultural productivity and post-harvest losses and waste in Nigeria. Illiteracy is also one of the several factors preventing the progress and development of agriculture in Nigeria. Research has proven that most of the farmers in Nigeria have not acquired formal education.
Dynamics At the time of Nigeria's independence (1960), food exports made up more than 70% of the country's Gross National Product (GNP). However, over the next 25 years, the situation reversed, with food items accounting for over 50% of imports. Despite having fertile land, food output in Nigeria declined, and per capita food production also decreased, leading to a more than sevenfold increase in grain imports.
In the 1970s, the Nigerian government promoted the use of inorganic fertilizers to address the issue. By 1990, out of Nigeria's total land area of about 91 million hectares, 82 million hectares were found to be suitable for farming, but only 42% of the cultivable area was farmed. The "bush fallow system," which involves land being left idle for a period of time to allow natural regeneration of soil fertility, was commonly used. Additionally, 18 million hectares were classified as permanent pasture, but had the potential to support crops, and most of the 20 million hectares covered by forests and woodlands were believed to have agricultural potential.
Agricultural holdings are small and scattered, and farming is carried out with simple tools. Large-scale agriculture is not common. Agriculture contributed 32% to GDP in 2001.
Nigeria’s Agricultural Import Bill surged 30% to N920 billion in Q1 2024, underscoring the nation's growing reliance on imported agricultural products like wheat and essential foods to meet consumer demand, which domestic farming struggles to satisfy. Nigeria's imported food inflation grew to over 36.38% in June 2024 according to reports.
This dependence on imports presents challenges for Nigeria’s agricultural sector, potentially reducing local production due to cheaper, more accessible imported goods. This competitive market environment poses risks to the sector’s long-term sustainability and development.
Animal Agriculture Animal husbandry, deals with the cultivation, management, and production of domestic animals, it involves the improvement of the qualities considered desirable by humans by means of breeding.
Livestock Nigeria is a significant hub of producing item utilization in West Africa. It is also one of the major livestock-producing nations in the district. Meeting the consistently expanding domestic demand and access to these markets are major economic stakes for Nigeria and for the adjoining Sahel nations that raise livestock. With its population and capacity for animal production, with 25% of the region's livestock herds, Nigeria is the leading animal producer in Central and West Africa.
The country's dairy cattle groups are assessed at north of 16 million head, a long ways in front of Niger (8.7 million), Mali (8.2 million) and Chad (7 million). The portion of Sahel nations is huge, nonetheless, addressing more than half of absolute steers groups. Cows bringing up in Nigeria is to a great extent enhanced by short-cycle domesticated animals tasks, assessed at 33.8 million head of sheep and 175 million poultry birds.
The livestock and agriculture sector in recent times have been facing threats of collapse due to recent rise in insecurity in the northern part of the Country.
Nigerian Domesticated animals Tasks Face Huge Impediments to Improvement Domesticated animals raising is a significant area of movement in Nigeria, however it is likely to a few significant imperatives. Accessible field land is subsiding essentially as urban communities and cultivating grow. Admittance to creature farming sources of info appears to be lacking and specialized help for animal wellbeing deficient. Steers are brought basically up in the Sudan-Sahel district of the northern states, where agro-peaceful exercises for the most part include occasional and cross-line relocation to exploit Sahel pastures in the stormy season. Below are some obstacles to improve:
Rising Meat Utilization and Changing Food Propensities.
The solid ascent popular for creature items is expected not exclusively to the high pace of urbanization (60% of Nigerians are city occupants), however most importantly to customers' more prominent buying power and the development of another working class. Besides, this exchange monster represents almost 60% of global exchange the locale. Simultaneously, an ever-increasing number of buyers need better meat from directed slaughterhouses. Some modern meat organizations are currently sectioning the market, selling frozen meat bundled in individual parts. Drive-through eateries fit to this new sort of shopper are additionally growing quickly. A few examples of significant worth chain coordination are likewise being viewed as the area develops, with a couple of organizations handling meat in their own slaughterhouses provided by their own organizations of makers. Albeit this last fragment is developing, it actually represents under 10% of the general meat item market. In spite of these arising elements, many individuals actually don't approach Sahel hamburger, which is considered to be too costly by less-well-off fragments of the populace. In this way, according to the all out populace, meat utilization in Nigeria is still underneath the territorial normal (2 kg for each individual and each year in Nigeria, contrasted with 8 kg for every individual each year in ECOWAS).
Head Animals Shipping lanes in Focal and West Africa These courses run in a north-to-south heading from the Sahel to seaside markets. Many merge enormously towards Nigeria, at the core of this mainland sub-locale (source: IRAM, 2009) The Improvement of Nigerian Animal Cultivating A Basic Stake for the League, its Reproducers' Associations, and the Adjoining Animals Bringing Nations up in the Sahel. Making more meat items accessible quickly, moves toward reinforce the seriousness of domesticated animals tasks, support of private interest in this area — Nigerian domesticated animals strategy measures are firmly centered around concentrated animals tasks and on imports from nations that have fostered an animals industry. Both of these strategy choices depend on the utilization of a lot of grains, the accessibility and cost of which differ significantly with the changes underway in the Sahel and all over the planet. One can likewise keep thinking about whether this animals monster's approaches have adequately resolved the issues of agropastoral creation and working on the concurrence between animals reproducers and ranchers (a few in some cases exceptionally horrendous struggles broke out in 2009 and 2010 in the provinces of Bauchi, Nasarawa, Benue, Level and Ebonyi). Straightforwardly connected with populace development, crowd developments in Nigeria and admittance to feed and watering spots are difficult issues. The issue is in this way, more intensely than in other Sahel nations, one of making roaming crowding safer. Animals bringing up in the Sahel locale assumes a significant part in Nigeria. The reciprocal connection between domesticated animals bringing up in the North and in the South ought to be reinforced, without undercutting meat from the Sahel. Costs ought to more readily represent the scope of chance factors, the quantity of go-betweens and the vacillation of money trade rates. As the number of inhabitants in urban communities and towns in the Sahel develops, this meat will positively turn out to be more costly, and accordingly more "specific" corresponding to customers' buying power. In the ongoing 10 years, the Sahel nations will be unable to fulfill the Nigerian hamburger need in sum, however can in any case assume a significant part helping their separate economies. Sahel hamburger creation should accomplish other things to fulfill quality prerequisites. The steers headed to showcase from the Sahel are much of the time rather lean, and that implies that they should be filled out at middle of the road locales situated on the two sides of the line. To all the more efficiently and all the more quickly stuff dairy cattle for market, the limitations on admittance to take care of should be survived. This implies that animals reproducers' associations should get more political power in exchanges with industrialists (who produce wheat, presscake, and so forth.). This additionally implies that procedures should be found to work on the handling of rural side-effects. These are a portion of the difficulties confronting reproducers' associations as they try to work on their individuals' livelihoods and backing the cows raising area.
Poultry