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Animal Husbandry
Below is a typical advert copied from off-takers and anchor for poultry (chicken) business:
“If you are interested in Poultry, have capacity to build pen(s) for minimum of 2k-5k birds. We are collating a liste of interested members for outgrowersschem where you will be given the DOC (Day Old Chicks), Feeds, every input and to handle the Vet activities. Cheaper land is available for members at (Ogun State) an area with good road & electricity. The off-taker will give all the inputs, they will only use your facilities for 14-16 week weeks and pay you N125-135/bird.
If a farmer wants to depend upon chicken rearing alone to generate N2.2m profit annually, he needs to have
a pen standard pen that can accommodate at least, 8,800 birds at a time (to be run twice a year). That fully-equipped pen will cost him roughly N15m.
It is taken for granted that the anchor/off-taker will fund the day-to-day maintenance of the 8,800 birds. All he needs to provide to qualify for the sponsorship is the standard pen that will cost him about N15m otherwise, he will not be qualified for the gesture.
Each bird will give you N125 return (profit) i.e. 8800x125 = 1,100,000
You will do it 2ce a year i.e. 16 weeksx7days=112x2=224days less 30 days=136 for turnaround maintenance. = 2,200,000.
All these unfavourable scenarios still bordered upon the fact that commercial farming is very expensive. Now, let’s consider the markets for the farmer’s products.
The Market
From my over 10-years practical experience in the field of farming, what is still largely in vogue, in spite of the various so-called interventions by Government and private initiatives, (Anchor programmes etc) is that farmers still operate in an unfavourable market system. The normal business principle whereby the businessman determines his product’s price by costing his input and adding a fair profit margin is inapplicable to farmers. Rather, the ‘reverse-order’ of pricing is used to determine what the farmer earns after all his labours. Unfortunately this situation is further aggravated by the fact that there’s no preservation facilities to prevent the farmers products from wasting away so he has to sell at any price offered him in order not to lose completely. This is majorly responsible for the present unprofitability of small-scale commercial farming as a venture that I currently practise.
My practical approach to Farming as a business
In order to practise a profitable commercial farming that will provide ample employment opportunity for the unemployed and benefit me as a farmer, I intend to
Increase my crop farming
Maintain my Economic tree Farms
Increase my poultry business from the modest 240 birds to 1,000 birds
Mechanise my Garri Processing Unit
Establish the small scale Palm-oil Processing to process palm oil from my farms and the processing commercially for other farmers within the next few years.
The major advantages associated with these projects is that they are Integrated projects: For instance
with the Establishment of Garri Processing Unit,
we are our own off-taker for our Cassava Tubers.
The establishment of Poultry automatically
makes us our own off-takers for our Maize production.
With the establishment of Palm-oil Processing Centre, we are our own
off-taker for our palmfruits. In other words, we have ready-made market that will purchase our farm produces at profit. These businesses are all sustainable in the sense that
There is technical expertise in their day-to-day management
There will be steady supply of raw materials
There are ready demands for the final products (Garri, birds and palm-oil).
There’s good succession plan.
As for School business, so long as children come to the world and our schools deliver on promise, there will always be pupils and students intake and our schools will primary off-takers for our farm products such as chickens, eggs, palm oil, garri etc.
There’s no doubt that to achieve these objectives, I need to interact with people of like minds to in particular ways. This can be Cooperative Societies whereby we can collaborate to source for some farming inputs like tractors, aggro-allied chemicals and even finance.
Animal Husbandry
Below is a typical advert copied from off-takers and anchor for poultry (chicken) business:
“If you are interested in Poultry, have capacity to build pen(s) for minimum of 2k-5k birds. We are collating a liste of interested members for outgrowersschem where you will be given the DOC (Day Old Chicks), Feeds, every input and to handle the Vet activities. Cheaper land is available for members at (Ogun State) an area with good road & electricity. The off-taker will give all the inputs, they will only use your facilities for 14-16 week weeks and pay you N125-135/bird.
If a farmer wants to depend upon chicken rearing alone to generate N2.2m profit annually, he needs to have
a pen standard pen that can accommodate at least, 8,800 birds at a time (to be run twice a year). That fully-equipped pen will cost him roughly N15m.
It is taken for granted that the anchor/off-taker will fund the day-to-day maintenance of the 8,800 birds. All he needs to provide to qualify for the sponsorship is the standard pen that will cost him about N15m otherwise, he will not be qualified for the gesture.
Each bird will give you N125 return (profit) i.e. 8800x125 = 1,100,000
You will do it 2ce a year i.e. 16 weeksx7days=112x2=224days less 30 days=136 for turnaround maintenance. = 2,200,000.
All these unfavourable scenarios still bordered upon the fact that commercial farming is very expensive. Now, let’s consider the markets for the farmer’s products.
The Market
From my over 10-years practical experience in the field of farming, what is still largely in vogue, in spite of the various so-called interventions by Government and private initiatives, (Anchor programmes etc) is that farmers still operate in an unfavourable market system. The normal business principle whereby the businessman determines his product’s price by costing his input and adding a fair profit margin is inapplicable to farmers. Rather, the ‘reverse-order’ of pricing is used to determine what the farmer earns after all his labours. Unfortunately this situation is further aggravated by the fact that there’s no preservation facilities to prevent the farmers products from wasting away so he has to sell at any price offered him in order not to lose completely. This is majorly responsible for the present unprofitability of small-scale commercial farming as a venture that I currently practise.
My practical approach to Farming as a business
In order to practise a profitable commercial farming that will provide ample employment opportunity for the unemployed and benefit me as a farmer, I intend to
Increase my crop farming
Maintain my Economic tree Farms
Increase my poultry business from the modest 240 birds to 1,000 birds
Mechanise my Garri Processing Unit
Establish the small scale Palm-oil Processing to process palm oil from my farms and the processing commercially for other farmers within the next few years.
The major advantages associated with these projects is that they are Integrated projects: For instance
with the Establishment of Garri Processing Unit,
we are our own off-taker for our Cassava Tubers.
The establishment of Poultry automatically
makes us our own off-takers for our Maize production.
With the establishment of Palm-oil Processing Centre, we are our own
off-taker for our palmfruits. In other words, we have ready-made market that will purchase our farm produces at profit. These businesses are all sustainable in the sense that
There is technical expertise in their day-to-day management
There will be steady supply of raw materials
There are ready demands for the final products (Garri, birds and palm-oil).
There’s good succession plan.
As for School business, so long as children come to the world and our schools deliver on promise, there will always be pupils and students intake and our schools will primary off-takers for our farm products such as chickens, eggs, palm oil, garri etc.
There’s no doubt that to achieve these objectives, I need to interact with people of like minds to in particular ways. This can be Cooperative Societies whereby we can collaborate to source for some farming inputs like tractors, aggro-allied chemicals and even finance.
