Agricultural Sector

The economy of the State is basically agrarian in nature with a cultivable land of 2.4million hectares out of which 1.6million is under cultivation. This leave a land area of 800,000 hectares; equivalent to one third of the total cultivable land available for investment. The State also has over 61 water bodies suitable for irrigation farming with a capacity of 1121CU while the major ones have a total capacity of 558CU, located at Sabke, Jibia, and Gwaigwaye.

Farming and rearing of animals occupies the lives of about 80% of the total population of the State. The State for long has been a major aggregation centre for cash crops such as cotton, ground-nuts and food crops such as maize, guinea corn, millet, and vegetables. The livestock in the state essentially consist of cattle, sheep, goat and Poultry. These provides huge opportunities for setting up of large scale agro-allied industries such as sugar processing industry, rice milling, oil  and flour milling, textiles, dairy products, confectioneries, meat processing, tannery, hatchery and poultry production, etc.

The State has the following ranking in agricultural production and other business endeavours in Nigeria:

• Largest producer of cotton
• Second largest producer of sorghum
• Produces 13% of total Nigeria’s sugarcane making it second in  Nigeria’s ranking;
• The World Bank ranked the State 4th in ease of doing business ahead of Lagos, Kano, Rivers and Cross Rivers;
• The State ranks 12th in the prevalence Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME);
• The State was ranked 17th   in Gross State Product with average  per capita of $6,022; and

Major producer of other cereals and legume crops

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