National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reports that Nigeria has about 40.2 million agricultural households.
NBS revealed this at the National Agricultural Sample Census (NASC) 2022 in Abuja on Monday.
Bishop Ohioma, Assistant Director, Agricultural and Business Enterprises Statistics Department, NBS, gave the overview of the report.
The NBS in partnership with the World Bank, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security of the Nation census disclosed that out of the 91 per cent of agricultural households that cultivated crops, 35 per cent practised only crop cultivation while 48 per cent reported raising any type of livestock.
“16 per cent of the households raised 58 million cattle, while 41.2 per cent raised about 124 million goats. While 42.5 per cent raised poultry, most commonly chickens, while five per cent practised fisheries.”
The highest percentage of agricultural households engaged in Livestock Production was reported in Jigawa at 84.2 per cent, followed by Bauchi at 79.7 per cent .
The report said for Poultry, the highest percentage of agricultural households was recorded in Benue at 65.2 per cent, followed by Ebonyi State at 63.3 per cent.
Bishop while giving an overview of the report, said the survey has two components which include the listing component and the sample survey component .
Bishop added that the NASC listing was conducted using digitised Enumeration Area (EA) maps in all the 36 States of the Federation and the FCT. Ohioma said 767 Local Government Areas (LGAS) in the country were canvassed, however, seven LGAs were not covered as at the time of the Census due to insecurity.
“In all, 30,546 EAs were covered nationwide out of the proposed 30,960. ” He said one of the recommendations from the report include Government should allocate more resources to support the conduct of the quarterly and annual National Agricultural Sample Survey (NASS).
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