Livestock keeping and crop growing are the major two economic activities in Nakapiripirit. The district can roughly be divided into a dry and wet belt. The dry belt covers the sub-counties of Looro, Amudat, and Lorengedwat and extends down to Nabilatuk, Lolachat and parts of Loregae. The wet belt covers mainly areas around the foot of Mt. Kadam, namely Nakapiripirit, Namalu, Kakomongole and Karita. Sorghum is the main crop grown in the dry belt whereas maize is major crop grown in the wet belt. Other crops grown include beans, groundnuts, peas, simsim, sunflower, sugar canes and bananas. New crop verities have been introduced in the District to in prove on the food situation with the District such as up land rice.

Upland rice growing under Mt Kadam in Nakapiripirit

The District is totally dependent on rain-fed agriculture. The distribution and amount of rainfall received varies from region to region. The eastern parts of the district lying in the dry belt (Loroo, Amudat, and Lorengedwat) it is as low as 500mm.It is as high as 1200 mm in the wet western belt around the foothills of Mt. Kadam and areas bordering Districts of Kumi, Katakwi and Kapchorwa. Hence rainfall tends to become more reliable as one moves to the western parts of the District. The black volcanic soils prevalent in most western parts of the district have a real potential of being the food basket of the region if people could be encouraged and supported to resettle in the wetter belts of the district where crop production can be more certain. According to the 2002 census, the district has 12 registered cooperative societies dealing mainly in maize marketing, grain milling and cattle trade. Other associations include those dealing in agricultural implements, mainly ox-ploughs, saw milling, furniture works, construction and building companies, brick making and sunflower extraction. The district intends to immediately identify potential agricultural land for resettlement and encourage its residents to acquire land for intensive crop production in those areas.

Ox-traction technology has been known to be a pivot for production and needs to be promoted and popularized in the District as one way to increase acreage under crop farming.
There are also plans to increase production of both traditional and cash crops. Crops such as coffee, fruit trees, vegetable growing and other income earning crops will be promoted in the relevant parts of the district as a matter of policy.

The District is prone to droughts with make it to constantly seek food aid from form other donor groups for the rains within the region are not reliable. WFP has always come to the rescuer of the District when such calamities hit the District.

WFP trucks off load food for distribution in the District

Veterinary Services:
The veterinary department is very important in Nakapiripirit district considering that livestock rearing is a major economic activity. Current estimates put the livestock population at 180,000 cattle, 250,000 sheep/goats, and 1000 camels, 25,000 donkeys and less 30 exotic cattle.
Poultry population statistics for the district are not available. The ongoing branding of animals is expected to provide relatively more accurate statistics on the numbers of cattle by sub-county.
The herds in the district are, however, affected by animal diseases namely tick borne, anaplasmosiasis locally called lopid and East Coast Fever locally called lokit. The two top killer diseases in the district account for more than 50 percent of cattle deaths. Recently there was an out break of goat disease PPR which killed most of the goats in Pian County.

A goat affected by PPR

Others diseases include CBPP (loukoi) for cattle and new castle and gumbo in chickens. Consequently, the department concentrates on tick control through spraying and dipping animals. Tick diseases are very expensive to treat and in most cases farmers leave animals to die.
Due to limited staffing, veterinary extension services are virtually non-existent. There are only four veterinary officers in the district, one of who is the acting District veterinary Officer. The other three are posted at county level.
The district has only one veterinary assistant yet the policy is that there should one veterinary doctor per Sub County. This means that there is ardent need to recruit nine more doctors in order meet the basic minimum requirements.