In 1968, Nigeria was the world’s biggest producer of groundnut (averaging 712, 600 tonnes a year), the second producer of cocoa (203,600 tonnes) after Ghana, the fourth producer of tin (13,264 tonnes) and the biggest producer of columbite. Oil palm, growing wild and in plantations in the south, supplied half the world’s exports of palm kernels (402,200 tonnes) and seventy(70%) of the world’s export of palm oil (152,700 tonnes). Nigerian forest covered some 310,800 square kilometres and produced 1.132 million cubic metres of timber a year, for export as logs, sawn timber or plywood sheets. Rubber was grown by peasant farmers and, increasingly in plantations; and was partially processed in local factories. The ancient livestock industry of the north still supplies the whole country. About a million cattle are slaughtered annually, and the trade is now being modernised and expanded. As a by-product of the northern livestock industry, there is an old and valuable trade in hides and skins. As a matter of fact the type of skin inaccurately called Moroccan leather comes from Nigeria.
Since the discovery of crude oil, the agricultural sector had suffered greatly due to inadequate funding, low man power and so on. Nigeria had gradually shifted to a mono-economy nation with crude oil as its major source of income. For how long will the oil last, only time will tell...
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