What Are the Major Industries in Mississippi?
The major industries that support the economy of Mississippi are agriculture, textile production, electronics production, transportation, manufacturing and fishing. The agriculture industry is the largest industry in the state, and the biggest farming production lies in cotton, corn, soybeans and rice.
Agriculture’s impact on the Mississippi economy is evident in the fact that the industry directly or indirectly employs about 29 percent of the state’s workforce. Statewide there are about 42,300 farms working about 11.2 million acres of land.
The agriculture industry in Mississippi produced 1,392 million eggs, 85,140,000 bushels of soybeans, 146,700,000 bushels of corn and 730,000 bales of cotton in 2013. The state’s leading economic driver also produced $126 million worth of wheat, $141 million worth of rice, $144 million worth of hogs, or pigs, $289 million worth of cattle and $1.17 billion in the forestry industry.
Mississippi, which is commonly called the “Magnolia State,” is a state in the southeastern part of the United States. It is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee. Mississippi also holds the widest river in the United States, the Mississippi river. It is the 31st most populous state in the union, with 2,991,207 residents. Mississippi was added to the union as a state on December 10, 1817, making it the 20th addition. It is comprised of 82 counties.
