plate 382 · 2024 data

Niger's onion harvest tripled, entering the world's top ten

Dry onion production, million tonnes, 2024 (grey: 2014), the eight largest producers after India and China. Official figures, FAO.

Africa's century
  1. 1. By 2100, more than 1 in 3 people will be African
  2. 2. Nearly half the world's under-25s will be African by 2100
  3. 3. DR Congo is projected to outgrow the US by 2100
  4. 4. Kinshasa will soon be bigger than Paris and London combined
  5. 5. Two-thirds of the world's mobile money moves in Africa
  6. 6. Volcanic heat makes nearly 45% of the power Kenya generates
  7. 7. Africa's solar imports more than doubled since early 2024
  8. 8. DR Congo mines three-quarters of the world's cobalt
  9. 9. Most people in Africa are still offline
  10. 10. Africa formally recycles less than 1% of its e-waste
  11. 11. Ethiopia added over a third of Africa's new renewable power
  12. 12. Nigeria's cities now hold more people than Japan's
  13. 13. Sudan now has the world's most people displaced at home
  14. 14. Nigeria now has almost 25 million more people than Brazil
  15. 15. Six of the ten fastest-growing big cities are African
  16. 16. Africa now has more hungry people than Asia
  17. 17. Six in ten child deaths now happen in sub-Saharan Africa
  18. 18. Rwanda spread electricity faster than any country since 2014
  19. 19. Nigeria now eats more rice than Japan
  20. 20. More sub-Saharan Africans now have mobile money than bank accounts
  21. 21. Sub-Saharan Africa's cities now hold more people than Latin America's
  22. 22. DR Congo tripled its copper mining in ten years
  23. 23. Nitrogen dioxide over Khartoum fell 39% after war began
  24. 24. Countries mostly without electricity fell from 33 to 15
  25. 25. Seven in ten West African mobile money accounts sit idle
  26. 26. Nigeria became the third-biggest sender of students abroad
  27. 27. Guinea overtook Australia as the world's biggest bauxite miner
  28. 28. DR Congo passed Chile in refined copper
  29. 29. Burkina Faso now sends half its exports to the UAE
  30. 30. Nouakchott's mobile internet sped from Africa's slowest to top 30
  31. 31. Nigeria now imports more solar panels than generators
  32. 32. Zimbabwe climbed to fourth among the world's lithium miners
  33. 33. Services now employ twice as many Ghanaian women as farms
  34. 34. Sub-Saharan Africa doubled its grain, mostly by farming more land
  35. 35. Sub-Saharan Africa added more rural people than the whole world
  36. 36. France fell from first to third among Côte d'Ivoire's suppliers
  37. 37. China's car sales to Ethiopia are now mostly electric
  38. 38. Guinea rose from 17th to second for investment in Africa
  39. 39. Africa now mines three-quarters of the world's manganese
  40. 40. Tanzania rose from no graphite to world's third-biggest miner
  41. 41. DR Congo has more babies each year than the EU
  42. 42. More Malawians go online than have electricity at home
  43. 43. Nigeria is now Brazil's biggest supplier of urea fertiliser
  44. 44. 19 sub-Saharan countries are now mostly urban, up from 7
  45. 45. Sub-Saharan Africa added 13 million births a year since 2000
  46. 46. Sub-Saharan Africa now holds 88% of people without electricity
  47. 47. Malawi's life expectancy rose 21 years, more than anywhere
  48. 48. Ethiopia's wheat harvest nearly doubled, mostly from higher yields
  49. 49. In purchasing power, Egypt overtook Nigeria as Africa's biggest economy
  50. 50. Kenyans abroad send home more than Kenya receives in aid
  51. 51. Africa tops urea supply in 12 countries, up from six
  52. 52. Lusaka now outnumbers Zambia's 13 other cities of 2000
  53. 53. Niger's onion harvest tripled, entering the world's top ten
  54. 54. Sub-Saharan Africa added over a third of working-age growth
2.37 Mt

Niger's dry onion harvest in 2024, three times the 0.78 Mt of 2014.

#24 → #7

Its rank among 139 producing countries on FAO's figures, with Pakistan only 3% behind.

70,128 ha

Land under onions in 2024, up from 22,634 ha in 2014, while the yield stayed near 34 tonnes per hectare.

Source: FAO, FAOSTAT: Crops and livestock products (QCL), onions and shallots, dry, 2024
the numbers & method
Niger's onion harvest tripled, entering the world's top ten. Source: FAO, FAOSTAT: Crops and livestock products (QCL), onions and shallots, dry, 2024.
Onion production (Mt)2014 (grey bar) (Mt)
United States3.503.17
Egypt3.442.51
Bangladesh2.921.39
Turkey2.631.79
Niger2.370.78
Pakistan2.301.74
Iran2.162.07
Indonesia2.091.23

Claim types Fact

FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL), release of 31 December 2025, item Onions and shallots, dry (excluding dehydrated): production (tonnes) and area harvested (hectares), read from the FAOSTAT API via the progrss vault (source faostat-full; GUIDELINES §4.11). Niger: 783,134 t (2014), 1,313,179 t (2019), 2,084,145 t (2023), 2,373,171 t (2024); official figures in every year except 2021, which FAO imputed. Area harvested 22,634 ha (2014) and 70,128 ha (2024); yield 34.6 and 33.8 tonnes per hectare (progrss calculation, production ÷ area). How firm the level is: these are Niger's official figures as reported to FAO. Niger's Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Direction des Statistiques, final report on irrigated crops 2024-2025, table 24, excluding state irrigation schemes) prints 2,163,211 t on 62,515 ha at 34.6 t/ha, below FAO's 2024 figure. Farm records collected by the Tahoua regional chamber of agriculture in 2021-22 found yields of about half the official rate, so the true harvest may be lower than the official one. The official yield doubled between 2011 and 2012 (a change of method, before the 2014 base used here); 2014 and 2024 are on the same method. Ranks are progrss calculations among countries with a value (138 in 2014, 139 in 2024): Niger was 24th in 2014 and 7th in 2024, passing 17 countries. Seventh is a narrow call: Pakistan (2.30 Mt, official) is 3% behind and Iran (2.16 Mt, FAO imputed) 9% behind; on the ministry's own 2.16 Mt Niger would still be in the top ten. India (24.27 Mt) and China (24.22 Mt, FAO estimate) are first and second and are left off the chart so the other bars can be read. Of the countries shown, FAO imputed the 2024 values for Egypt and Iran; the rest are official. Not licensed for paid packs (FAO terms not confirmed for commercial reuse).

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what connects to this

034 new routes Egypt is the world's biggest wheat buyer 341 new routes India now imports more cotton than it exports 384 people on the move Older people outnumber children in 38 countries, up from 10