The Food and Agriculture Organization claims that Nigeria is the largest producer of yams in the world. The country is able to produce from 70 to 76 percent of yams grown in the world.
In 1085, Nigeria produced about 18.3 million tonnes of yam but in 2008, that figure already doubled because Nigeria was producing 35.017 million metric tonnes of yam.
In case you don’t know, here are the biggest producing yam states in Nigeria.
- Benue State – The Zaki Biam yam market is the largest, maybe in Africa.
- Taraba State – The state’s 1.5 million hectares of arable land are being used mostly to grow yams.
- Nasarawa State – At a time, this state was exporting over 150 tonnes of yam to the UK.
- Adamawa State – World Atlas put the production of yam in this state as being over 10,000 metric tons.
However, these are not the only yam-producing states in Nigeria. Others are Cross River, Delta, Oyo, Edo, Ekiti, Imo, Kaduna, Kwara, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Plateau states.