Stories by Steve Agbota [email protected] 08033302331
The World Bank recently projected that agriculture and agribusiness in Africa will grow to a $1 trillion industry by 2030. Presently, Africa’s culinary industry is currently valued at $313 billion.
It has therefore become imperative that Nigeria must harness this potential in order to shrink unemployment, especially that of women and youths, thereby creating rural prosperity and improving food and nutrition security.
To tap into these opportunities, there is need to support small scale farmers and young entrepreneurs by strengthening education and vocational training, building capacity for young people to self-organise, linking entrepreneurs to regional and global value chains, investing in infrastructure and technologies, and enabling access to finance.
With the rise in urban populations across the country, the need for fresh foods to cater for these people is inevitable. Developments toward industrialisation have left fewer entrepreneurs to be more focused on food production. Agriculture is a good sector for one to make profit, while contributing to the world’s food supply.
The rise in food prices and the increased demand for consumables have created viable opportunities in the agricultural sector. However, agriculture stakeholders said entrepreneurs could make enough money in farming business, as farming incomes will rise dramatically in the next few decades, faster than those in most other industries.
But today in Nigeria, fewer people who engage in some of the opportunities available in agriculture and its value chains are making millions both in local and foreign currency, while most people still view agriculture as a dead-end and dirty career that entails life-long labour on a farm.
With the rise in the prices of food items and the market for such agricultural produce, it is crystal clear that the Nigeria’s present day economy does not need more bankers but more people in the agribusiness sector because the world has got a serious food problem and the only real way to solve it is to get more entrepreneurs back to agriculture.
Highlighting why Nigerians must embrace agriculture as a business, the Managing Director of Highhill Agribusiness Development and Incubation Centre (HABDEC), Adeniyi Sola Bunmi, advised that people must have in-depth knowledge and adequate information before they invest their hard earned money.
According to him, the available opportunities along the value chain are massive so knowledge, time, capital and market are crucial to potential investors’ success in agribusiness.
Speaking on the secrets investors have to understand about agriculture and why it will forever be lucrative, he hinted that farming is a business and could be profitable in Nigeria if people understand it to be a “business”.
He explained: “The first problem we have about encouraging Nigerians to embrace farming is that most people see agriculture as a very dirty thing. How did we arrive at this mindset? Because our forefathers were subsistence farmers and they were poor and dirty. This has made us to draw a wrong conclusion about the whole concept of farming. The good news is, farming can be a source of wealth for you. There are now many commercial farmers who are wealthy in Nigeria today.
“Farm produce will always be in high demand. The business world is unstable. A product that reigns today may be nothing tomorrow but farm produce is different. People must continue eating three times each day, and since we only have certain limited number of foods, we have to eat the same foods week after week. If you like banana and orange, you will not resist banana or orange because you ate them yesterday. People who love water melon, carrot, beans, rice, yam, plantain, cassava products, etc. will not say, I bought this last week, so I won’t buy again.”
Emphasising why people should go into farming, he said, “most of us eat fish or meat everyday, so cow price will surely keep on increasing. Catfish must continue selling, Titus and other fish in Nigeria must continue selling. Poultry birds, chicken, turkey, among others, will always have market demand. People can be poor and not buy clothes. They can be poor and not buy cars. People have to buy food, fish and meat. This understanding is enough to encourage you to go into agricultural business.”
As Nigerian population is increasing at an alarming rate, he noted that governments are now aware of the importance of agriculture. Bunmi said governments may not be granting enough loans as expected and may not be sensitising youths as expected, but they are reducing the saturation of the market by importers.
He said very soon, people could expect more and more government’s policy to favour agricultural businesses in Nigeria, noting “the reason is because government is now seeing that agribusiness is one of the ways by which we can reduce the rate of unemployment in our country and to do this, we must restrict importation of foods like chicken, fish, cassava products, among others.
However, he pointed out some agribusiness ideas for aspiring entrepreneurs where they can start with modicum capital in Nigeria, including poultry farming, poultry feed production, honey business, fresh vegetable business, raw agro product supply business, cucumber business, fish farming business and online agriculture agency business. Explaining the economic benefits of these farming businesses, he said, for instance;
Fish farming
Catfish is a unique type of fish rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, which helps in managing human cholesterol levels. The numerous health benefits of this species of fish makes its demand higher among health-conscious eaters especially people above the age of 40.
Restaurants, fast food joints, hotels, food courts (shopping malls like Shoprite), local pepper soup joints, market women, secondary and tertiary institutions of learning and offices are possible markets for any entrepreneur venturing into catfish farming in Nigeria.
The profitability of catfish farming depends on how much you are willing to invest as an entrepreneur. Apart from catfish farming, you can also specialise on feeds for the fish. This is another lucrative aspect in the fish business. There are lots of articles on the internet about how to start catfish farming in Nigeria. As I explained earlier, the best instruction you can get is by visiting a successful catfish farm and seeing things firsthand.
Raw agro product supply business
Most industries in Nigeria make use of raw agro products during production. You can serve as a middleman to supply these industries with the necessary raw materials, for a fee.
Honey business
You don’t need to have your own bee farm for you to start a honey supply business. You can source for and purchase honey in big jerry cans from places like Nsukka in Enugu State and sell in small quantities.