In 1968 Nigeria was the world biggest producer of groundnuts (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 plantation in the south, supplied half the world’s export of palm kernels (407, 200 tonnes) and seventy per cent of the world’s export of palm oil (152, 700tonnes). Nigeria forests covered some 310, 800 square kilometres and produced about 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 plantation; 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 modernized and expanded. As a by-product of the type of skin inaccurately called ‘Moroccan leather’ comes from Nigeria.
Timber can be made into
