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My Most Cherished Goals in Life
My overall vision is, using everything God has given me, to be abundantly blessed, and in turn, to be a blessing to people from all walks of life and to reign with Christ in eternity.
For this reason, I have devoted my life entire life to doing things that will enable me to achieve these set goals. And I am already practising some of these things according to my capacity. I am convinced that the outcome of my efforts will benefit humanity immensely in terms of giving vision to the visionless, creating wide employment opportunities for the unemployed, particularly in area of self-employment that will lead to financial breakthrough.
Nobody achieves his goals all alone. Everyone must associate with people of like minds to do so. I have chosen farming as my main profession. I practise the rest of my callings – professional or natural – as passive ventures.
The high points of farming are
it is a profitable venture if well practised
it holds the master-key to human survival
However, its low points are:
it is highly capital intensive
no cash for farmers to finance their farm
it requires technical expertise
it is not encouraged
farmers are looked down upon
Unfavourable and arbitrary market pricing.
the government pays lip service to promoting agriculture
no adequate supply of inputs
unfavourable pricing of available ones.
no steady labour
no tractorable land
no adequate tractors
The way out – FARMERS OF LIKE MINDS SHOULD JOIN HANDS TO PROMOTE THEMSELVES.
My Practical Farming Experiences
Without life, there is no nation. Hence the slogans such as “No Farmer, No Nation”, “Agbel’Oba” (The Farmer is King).
Agriculture, is no doubt, the main and the most sustainable profession in Nigeria. It will remain the largest employer of labour. Without agriculture, there will be no food. Without food there will be no life.
Another important point to note, is that, all things being equal and contrary to the wrong impressions people have about farming as an unprofitable commercial venture, from my 10+ years full-time practical experience in the field, I believe that with good agricultural practices in place, farming is a profitable commercial business.
There are numerous branches of agriculture as there are plants and animals. So, from these limitless agriculture options, I have chosen to concentrate on the following for COMMERCIAL purposes and practice selected few others for family sustenance:
Cropping: Cassava/Maize inter-cropping.
Economic Trees: Palm tree. (for sustainable old-age steady income),
Animal Husbandry: Poultry and catfish rearing.
Production: Garri Processing and palm oil.
Why not specialize in one or two?
In farming, there are three things I considered when I was going into commercial farming business.
Sustainable business
Sustainable employment
Sustainable income
I retired from paid employment at age 51 in year 2008. I have devoted greater part of my time to the research into the theories and practice of a sustainable commercial agriculture. I have attended several trainings covering the three major branches of agriculture: cropping, economic trees and animal husbandry. I have selected specific items from the three areas (i.e. Cropping: Cassava/Maize; Economic Trees: Palm Tree and Animal Husbandry: poultry). For approximately 10 years back I have been doing businesses in those three areas thereby gaining practical experience and deep insight into how to successfully manage them at a commercial level. My major discoveries are:
Commercial Farming business, like any other business venture, requires technical skills to manage it well. In this area, I have garnered adequate technical know-how through trainings and I continue to attend more of such.
Commercial Farming business requires huge capital base because for a farmer to truly go commercial, he/she must be able to cultivate a large farmland (mechanised) or raise huge number of animals. The farmer must also have the right market that will absorb his/her produce/animals at the right price that will give him/her the expected profit margin that will sustain him/her and his her family. In Ekiti State for instance, the recommended minimum crop/economic tree farming for a commercial farmer is 5 hectares of land. However, from my practical experience in the field of commercial farming, the expected profit from a 5 ha. of farm land cannot sustain a man with a wife and 2 children in Secondary School for one calendar year. Such a family needs an average of N2.2m. (N18,333 per month). This excludes the cost of transportation to work and so on. So a commercial farmer make at an average of N18,333 profit monthly to be able to make generate N2.2m per annum for family maintenance. Therefore, to generate a minimum of N2.2m profit for a famer to maintain his family in a year, such a farmer should determine the specific number of hectares of land to cultivate or animals to raise or the combination of both that will fetch him or her that amount in profit terms. It costs an average of N530k to cultivate both maize and cassava. Likewise to venture into animal husbandry, if poultry, build a sizeable pen that can accommodate a sizeable number of birds and be able to fund the management of the such number of birds (say 17600) birds in one calendar year involves a huge financial capital input. More details are provided below. All these require a huge financial capital outlay.
Therefore, from practical experience, I discovered that farming is a very expensive but profitable venture if well managed. (No wonder the business is unattractive to both the old and the young generation). Let me cite and example:
I am into cropping (cassava/maize) as an integrated business. I am into Economic Trees (palm-trees) and thirdly I am into animal husbandry. I have done practical experimentation in these three areas. Therefore I can say that I am very conversant with happenings in the industry – what can make them profitable or unprofitable. The full details of the financial implications of this are contained in the main book on this subject. But let me deal quickly with the summary:
My Most Cherished Goals in Life
My overall vision is, using everything God has given me, to be abundantly blessed, and in turn, to be a blessing to people from all walks of life and to reign with Christ in eternity.
For this reason, I have devoted my life entire life to doing things that will enable me to achieve these set goals. And I am already practising some of these things according to my capacity. I am convinced that the outcome of my efforts will benefit humanity immensely in terms of giving vision to the visionless, creating wide employment opportunities for the unemployed, particularly in area of self-employment that will lead to financial breakthrough.
Nobody achieves his goals all alone. Everyone must associate with people of like minds to do so. I have chosen farming as my main profession. I practise the rest of my callings – professional or natural – as passive ventures.
The high points of farming are
it is a profitable venture if well practised
it holds the master-key to human survival
However, its low points are:
it is highly capital intensive
no cash for farmers to finance their farm
it requires technical expertise
it is not encouraged
farmers are looked down upon
Unfavourable and arbitrary market pricing.
the government pays lip service to promoting agriculture
no adequate supply of inputs
unfavourable pricing of available ones.
no steady labour
no tractorable land
no adequate tractors
The way out – FARMERS OF LIKE MINDS SHOULD JOIN HANDS TO PROMOTE THEMSELVES.
My Practical Farming Experiences
Without life, there is no nation. Hence the slogans such as “No Farmer, No Nation”, “Agbel’Oba” (The Farmer is King).
Agriculture, is no doubt, the main and the most sustainable profession in Nigeria. It will remain the largest employer of labour. Without agriculture, there will be no food. Without food there will be no life.
Another important point to note, is that, all things being equal and contrary to the wrong impressions people have about farming as an unprofitable commercial venture, from my 10+ years full-time practical experience in the field, I believe that with good agricultural practices in place, farming is a profitable commercial business.
There are numerous branches of agriculture as there are plants and animals. So, from these limitless agriculture options, I have chosen to concentrate on the following for COMMERCIAL purposes and practice selected few others for family sustenance:
Cropping: Cassava/Maize inter-cropping.
Economic Trees: Palm tree. (for sustainable old-age steady income),
Animal Husbandry: Poultry and catfish rearing.
Production: Garri Processing and palm oil.
Why not specialize in one or two?
In farming, there are three things I considered when I was going into commercial farming business.
Sustainable business
Sustainable employment
Sustainable income
I retired from paid employment at age 51 in year 2008. I have devoted greater part of my time to the research into the theories and practice of a sustainable commercial agriculture. I have attended several trainings covering the three major branches of agriculture: cropping, economic trees and animal husbandry. I have selected specific items from the three areas (i.e. Cropping: Cassava/Maize; Economic Trees: Palm Tree and Animal Husbandry: poultry). For approximately 10 years back I have been doing businesses in those three areas thereby gaining practical experience and deep insight into how to successfully manage them at a commercial level. My major discoveries are:
Commercial Farming business, like any other business venture, requires technical skills to manage it well. In this area, I have garnered adequate technical know-how through trainings and I continue to attend more of such.
Commercial Farming business requires huge capital base because for a farmer to truly go commercial, he/she must be able to cultivate a large farmland (mechanised) or raise huge number of animals. The farmer must also have the right market that will absorb his/her produce/animals at the right price that will give him/her the expected profit margin that will sustain him/her and his her family. In Ekiti State for instance, the recommended minimum crop/economic tree farming for a commercial farmer is 5 hectares of land. However, from my practical experience in the field of commercial farming, the expected profit from a 5 ha. of farm land cannot sustain a man with a wife and 2 children in Secondary School for one calendar year. Such a family needs an average of N2.2m. (N18,333 per month). This excludes the cost of transportation to work and so on. So a commercial farmer make at an average of N18,333 profit monthly to be able to make generate N2.2m per annum for family maintenance. Therefore, to generate a minimum of N2.2m profit for a famer to maintain his family in a year, such a farmer should determine the specific number of hectares of land to cultivate or animals to raise or the combination of both that will fetch him or her that amount in profit terms. It costs an average of N530k to cultivate both maize and cassava. Likewise to venture into animal husbandry, if poultry, build a sizeable pen that can accommodate a sizeable number of birds and be able to fund the management of the such number of birds (say 17600) birds in one calendar year involves a huge financial capital input. More details are provided below. All these require a huge financial capital outlay.
Therefore, from practical experience, I discovered that farming is a very expensive but profitable venture if well managed. (No wonder the business is unattractive to both the old and the young generation). Let me cite and example:
I am into cropping (cassava/maize) as an integrated business. I am into Economic Trees (palm-trees) and thirdly I am into animal husbandry. I have done practical experimentation in these three areas. Therefore I can say that I am very conversant with happenings in the industry – what can make them profitable or unprofitable. The full details of the financial implications of this are contained in the main book on this subject. But let me deal quickly with the summary:
Inter-cropping Cassava with Maize)
In the first place even though one can profitably plant the two commodities individually, it makes more commercial sense to combine the two for greater profitability. The main reason is that it is only a very marginal difference between the cost of planting maize alone and intercropping it with cassava. For instance maize (special high-yielding breed) farming willing cost an average of N250,000 from land preparation to harvesting with an expected average profit of N120,000/ha within 4 months. (Note that that money will not be generated precisely at 4 months. The farmer has to wait for the appropriate timing for the prices to peak before selling his dry maize otherwise he might never realise the projected amount. The appropriate timing might be three to seven months after he has harvested so he needs to preserve his produce with additional costs). If this is the only crop planted, the result ends there. Whereas if intercropped with cassava, the farmer, latching initial costs (N250k) only needs to add about N170,000 (i.e. 470k) to earn additional N185,000 profits bringing his total profit to N120000(maize)+185,000 (cassava) =N305,000/ha on the same land used for maize. This amounts approximately 72% on a worst-case scenario whereas it could be much higher if the farmer applies all necessary inputs, particularly, fertiliser and the weather condition is favourable throughout the planting season.. For specialist cassava/maize farmer therefore to generate a minimum of N2.2m profit annually, he needs to cultivate at least (=N2.2m:N305k), he will need to cultivate at least 7.2 hectares of land which will cost him (N530.5k x 7.2ha) = N3.8m.
Two points to note from the above brief analysis are:
Farming is expensive
Farming is profitable (if properly managed)
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