page_title: Nigeria
section_title: Agriculture
hierarchical_section_title: Nigeria / Economy / Agriculture
caption_attribution_description: English: Agriculture in Nigeria is a branch of the economy, providing employment for about 30% of the population. The sector is being transformed by commercialization at the small, medium and large-scale enterprise levels. Mechanized agriculture is practiced in Kwara State, Nigeria. This is an image of "African people at work" from Nigeria
context_page_description: Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a sovereign country located in West Africa bordering Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Its southern coast is on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located.
  Nigeria has been home to a number of ancient and indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms over the millennia. The modern state originated from British colonial rule beginning in the 19th century, and took its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914 by Lord Frederick Lugard. The British set up administrative and legal structures while practicing indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms; Nigeria became a formally independent federation on October 1, 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970.
context_section_description: As of 2010, about 30% of Nigerians are employed in agriculture. Agriculture used to be the principal foreign exchange earner of Nigeria.
  Major crops include beans, sesame, cashew nuts, cassava, cocoa beans, groundnuts, gum arabic, kolanut, maize (corn), melon, millet, palm kernels, palm oil, plantains, rice, rubber, sorghum, soybeans and yams. Cocoa is the leading non-oil foreign exchange earner. Rubber is the second-largest non-oil foreign exchange earner.
  Prior to the Nigerian civil war, Nigeria was self-sufficient in food. Agriculture has failed to keep pace with Nigeria's rapid population growth, and Nigeria now relies upon food imports to sustain itself. The Nigerian government promoted the use of inorganic fertilizers in the 1970s. In August 2019, Nigeria closed its border with Benin to stop rice smuggling into the country as part of efforts to boost the local production.
caption: Farm ploughing in Kwara State
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