Just because something will grow down south does not mean the environment here is best for it to be grown on a commercial scale.

You have to be selective.

Cocoa for example will probably grow in Taraba, but a Taraba cocoa farmer will face far more challenges growing it than someone in Ondo or Akwa Ibom and so he will never compete in terms of yield.

Conversely, a water melon farmer in the South realistically has no more that a 6-7 month window to grow watermelon. And he will face far more fungal, bacterial and environmental challenges than his compatriot in the north. The guy in the north will almost always get a more reliable crop of watermelon with less effort than the guy down south.

Basically, parts of the north has inherent competitive advantage in tproducehe cultivation of several crops, but that's not a reason not to grow some in the south provided you're prepared for a lot of ups and downs including frequent losses to diseases.

Universities and research institutions in the South should be doing extensive research to adapt more and more of these crops to the climate down here, but they do not.

There's also the widely held misconception that the soil down here is more 'fertile.'

It depends on what you mean and in what respect. Also there's more to farming than just soil.

Because of heavy rains, our soils are often too acidic - the north does not have this problem on the same scale.
Our soil has a higher sand content that the soil in the north. This is a disadvantage.
[color=#000099]The very small difference between day and night time temperature[/color] down south makes life difficult for a lot of crops e.g tomatoes and many others. Though many parts of the north have higher day tempratures, night temperature can also fall dramatically. Plants like tomatoes and many others prefer this to the 'suffocating' conditions in the humid South.
High Humidity in the South is another downer. Most crops do not do as well under conditions of extremely high humidity.
Labour is more readily available and probably cheaper in many parts of the north than the south.


I am not trying to discourage people! I think these are valuable factors a Southern farmer should take into consideration. A clever thing to do is to try and grow your crops when it is not in season in the north, so you can have less competition in the market from northerners. Or produce a superior crop and sell in distinct market outlets.

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