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Top 10 Ways to Start Farming Business

How to Start farming Business : Food, as we all know is one of the basic necessities of life as nobody can live without food (water inclusive).

Food is naturally produced through farming.

Farming is a widely known occupation to Nigerians both in the rural and urban areas.

Farming comes in different categories.

It may be livestock rearing, crop production, poultry farming, fish farming, piggery etc.

Farming can also be in two different scales.

It may be small scale (also known as subsistence farming) or large scale (also known as commercial farming).

Depending on your capital, you can choose to the nature and scale of farming to dabble into.

It is worthy of note that with no capital, it is almost impossible to go into farming business.

And the scale of farming to go into depends on the amount the investor is ready to disburse into the funding of the business.

This article on how to go about starting a farming business in Nigeria will give you the much needed exposure to youths.

Especially graduates in Nigeria who are still of the opinion that farming is exclusively meant for inhabitants of the rural communities and not for people like them searching for which collar jobs in urban areas.

Are you interested in knowing how to start a farming business in Nigeria? If yes, then you need to go through these guidelines to turn your dream into reality and be rest assured that you would not regret reading this article.

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How to Start farming Business in Nigeria

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1. Decide which scale of farming to go into

It is necessary to take the decision on which type and scale of farming you want to get involved in.

Do you want to be a small scale farmer or you want to go on a large scale?

It will be safe to assume that readers of this article will likely go for commercial farming which will involve having enough for oneself and for sale.

In going into commercial farming, it would also be important to note that commercial farming is capital intensive as you may even require to mechanize your farming in order to make the work less tedious.

Another thing to take into consideration before you start farming is the type of farming to go into.

Is it livestock rearing (cattle, sheep and goat) or rearing of animals like pigs, rabbits, grass cutters etc.?

Would you like to go into crop production that is, production of maize, fruits, cassava, beans etc.

From all these above, an area should interest you and then you should take further step in actualizing your dream.

2. Carry out a survey

A little research is needed in order to know more about the aspect of farming you’ve dabble into and its requirements.

Seek information from books, journals, internet and other sources of information on the type of farming of your choice.

If you have chosen to go into fish farming, you need to know more about the fingerlings, where to purchase them; their feed, what they eat; the weather condition favorable to them; which land is best suited for pond construction; where to get experts for consultation; the drugs they take; where to sell them profitably and so on.

Have it at the back of your mind that it is unsafe to base your decisions in the course of starting a farming business on assumption, you need to be armed with enough and valid information about that type of farming lest you record a monumental loss.

As a result, if you are occupied with the thoughts of going into farming, there are many aspects of farming you may get involved in but you need to carry out a proper survey in order to acquire all the necessary information you need to attain success in your chosen aspect of farming.

After carrying out the survey, you can write a good business plan based on how to start farming taking into consideration your area of choice and also consisting of step by step approach to the business.

3. Raise capital for your business

As we all know that money drives any idea, it will be difficult to go into farming without capital.

It is not enough to think of going into farming, you need you need to also think of how to raise capital that will turn your dreams into reality.

If your farming business is to be on a commercial scale, then you definitely need capital as it was mentioned earlier. There are many ways by which you can source for capital for your farming business in Nigeria.

It may be from personal savings; loan from friends and family; loan from commercial banks and bank of industry/agriculture etc.

How to Start farming Business in Nigeria

How big or small your farming business will be depends on the amount of capital you have.

So it is important to source for capital from as many sources as possible.

You can easily get loans from bank of industry or bank of agriculture both fund your business if you have a good business proposal.

 See also: How to Start A Dump Truck Business

4.Acquire the required items

The next step after sourcing for capital is to acquire the necessary items to implement your idea.

This is a very important step and you cannot go through this step without properly passing through the previous steps.

Assuming your area of interest is yam and cassava production. You need to get land for cultivating; the tubers (yam) and stems (cassava) to plant, fertilizers, hoe and machete for making ridges and land clearing respectively etc.

Depending on your capital, you can also purchase farm machines like tractors, harvesters etc.

In order to make your work easier and increase productivity.

6.Implement your ideas

This is the most important stage in starting a farming business, without this, nothing has been achieved.

If all your ideas and plans are not implemented, then your dream has not come to reality.

This stage is very important and in fact the most important.

In order to turn your plans into reality, it must be executed.

In case of fish farming, you construct your pond, pump water in the pond and treat the water, pour in your juvenile or fingerlings carefully as the case may be and feed them as instructed.

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6. Consult experts for advice and supervision

I will advise you to always consult experts for advice and supervision if you can afford it.

It will cost you a little if you can also consult someone who is not necessarily literate but has long years of experience in the business.

It is not until you have problems before you start consulting experts.

As goes the saying, “prevention is better than cure”.

Do not wait until your farm become ravaged with one disease or the other before you start consulting.

The fact that you are still a rookie in the business makes consultation more important.

Therefore, if you are considering going into farming business, consulting experts for advice and supervision is inevitable in order for you to succeed in the business.

7. Make researches

As we all know that the more we ask questions, the more we know new things and our level of understanding is developed.

Research gives you more knowledge of what part of agricultural business you are engaging yourself which will be more profitable and conducive for you to venture into.

It will help you know the types of livestock or cash crops people are most likely to buy and the seasons which this crops and livestock are available in the market.

During the research you will get to know what rate they are been sold based on the quality and freshness. You can make this research anywhere but it’s advisable you go to market place where you will meet both farmer and the buyers for advice.

8. Identify a farming problem

The step to take when starting a farming business is to identify a problem that people have and focus on solving that problem. A few months ago, I launched Thrive Agric, a technology driven agricultural company that crowdfunds from individuals and corporate bodies that have interest in agriculture. The funds are invested in a farm with promised returns after a farming cycle.

However, before starting this company, I worked with a lot of farmers around the country and during my interactions with them, I identified two key problems that they faced. These key problems involved the supply and demand of farming products.

Supply problems

On the supply angle, I noticed that farmers around the country had three major challenges:

  • Firstly, they were experiencing low yield from their farms because they didn’t have a full understanding of standard practices in agriculture.
  • Secondly, they didn’t have enough money to scale mainly due to lack of financial knowhow. For instance, they did not understand the concept of separating revenue from profit or know that they had to cost their labour and apportion personal salaries from their revenues. As a result, they were spending all their earnings and could not scale their businesses.
  • Thirdly, they did not have access to profitable markets, which led them to sell their produce at unfavourable and demotivating prices.

Demand problems

As a result of the aforementioned supply problems, market players who demanded produce from these farmers suffered. For instance:

  • People in the nearby villages needed more farming produce than the farmers were able to provide.
  • Also, processing companies in Lagos and other parts of the country wanted more raw materials than these farmers were able to supply.

The identification of these problems was the trigger that led to the creation of Thrive Agric.

We wanted to produce enough to meet internal demand for food.

If you can also identify a farming-related problem around you and devise a plan to solve that problem, then you’d have taken the first necessary step to starting up your farming business.

9.Close the knowledge gap

Once you have highlighted a farming-related problem that you want to solve, the next step is to close up the gap between what you know about that problem and what you need to know to be a successful farming entrepreneur. There are two avenues you can use to hack this:

  • Seek agricultural education: You could get knowledge from available material (doing online courses or reading books) on the problem you are looking to solve.
  •  You could leverage the knowledge other people have acquired, by consulting experts in the field you would like to venture into; Nigeria has a whole lot of smart people to learn from, the problem is we hardly look out for them.

I would personally advise that you use a mix of these two avenues, because having a good understanding of your farming enterprise is a major key for success. Not having this understanding could prove quite costly, and I’ll use a personal story to explain how.

 Read also: Establishing a business , Everything you need to Know

10. Hire farm labour

You need to hire full time labour to help you in the farm before and when it’s time for harvesting the crops and taking care of livestock. These labourers should ensure that bushes are cleared, making of heaps, planting, application of fertilizer, controlling of pest, rodent and watering the crops are regularly done.

You will also need an extra hand in picking and harvesting some of this crops, and for your livestock, regular feeding, giving of injections to control animal disease, and regular check up.

 See also: How to Start Orange and Lemon farming 

Conclusion

This is a concise and well-researched article on verified and trusted guidelines to follow on how to go into farming business in Nigeria. Depending on how much you have to fund it, farming business can either be capital intensive or cheap. If you do not have enough money to invest in the business, read carefully step 3 as there are ways to access loans there.

Widen your ideas, do not limit yourself to the ones stated here if you are sure they won’t give you the solution that you desire-research into other sources.

One thing you can be rest assured of is that farming is very lucrative though sadly, Nigerian government has not done enough to encourage teeming unemployed youths who are still hell bent on getting white collar jobs to embrace farming.

We all have to embrace farming because soon crude oil, our major source of revenue will dry up but farming will always be there.

There are a lot of youth who has made millions through the business in a short period of time. Government must provide incentives, invest in massive plantations which will serve as a source of employment for youths.

No doubt, nowadays, white collar jobs are becoming very scarce and hence the high rate of unemployment. Farming may be the solution to this.

Lastly, as a graduate or an intending graduate, don’t think too much about white collar jobs. Re-strategize, plan and look into going into farming.

All the best!!

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