“The best sector in the world that I know right now is probably agriculture. Everybody should be a farmer”…..Jim Rogers
Better times are indeed here for farmers in Nigeria. The market is opening up and government’s drive for growth in the agricultural sector is gradually taking shape. Agriculture is suddenly receiving all the attention by the federal and state governments. It gladdens my heart when new vistas of investment opportunities are opened in the agricultural sector.
Better times are here for cassava farmers in the country. The entrance of new distilleries like Alliance distilleries among others industries into the production and refining of ethanol from fresh cassava tubers have opened up an incredible vista of market opportunities with demands for fresh cassava tubers running into 10,000 Metric tons on daily basis. Other string of industries like Thai Farms producers of High Quality Cassava flour, Ekha Agro producers of industrial glucose, SABMillers producers of Cassava beer, Matna Foods producers of industrial starch among hundreds of others equally have incredible demand for cassava tubers that is presently unmet. The cassava flour policy is gradually picking up. At full implementation, the sector alone will gulp over 100,000 Metric tons of cassava tubers daily. Indeed, we are entering a phase where there would be very high demand among competing industries for cassava and the farmer would ultimately be a jewel of inestimable value.
Better times are here for growers of grains like maize, soyabeans, groundnut, wheat and millet. These industrial crops are being used in high volume by a wide range of food processing and feed milling industries. Corporations like Nigerian breweries, Premier Feeds, Zartech Farms, Animal Care, Obasanjo Farms, Efugo Farms, Guinness Nigeria, Flour Mills, Bendel Feeds among many others use thousands of tons of these grain products on daily basis. Presently, the national capacity to supply these grains to the industrial chain is currently below the demand volume, as these crops also have competitive usage as food. Opportunities avail for farmers to improve their capacities and tap into this bubbling market that is available to them.
Better times are also here for poultry farmers. For producers of well finished poultry products, supply opportunities are opening up in a number of fast food giants in the country. According to Keith Warren, the Managing Director of Kentucky Fried Chicken, KFC Africa, the only problem KFC is having with its Nigerian operation is the inadequate farming capacity to supply the company with chickens and lettuce vegetables. In his words, “the only limiting factor we’ve got in Nigeria right now is actually chicken supply and finding suppliers who are able to meet our global standard in sufficient quantity. The commercial chicken industry is horribly underdeveloped.” At the moment, chicken producers of high standard are already enjoying doing business with KFC even though the company still imports bulk of its vegetables from our West African neighbor, Ghana. Farmers that can demonstrate high quality production capacity can readily access this growing market. What about chains of other fast food restaurants that dot every hundred meters in our metropolis. They equally have demand for well produced chicken products. Better time is here for ambitious chicken producers.
The better times are also here for growers of agricultural commodities. Never has demand for our cash crops being this high. The demands for our cashew nuts, Shea butter, Cocoa beans and sesame seeds are at all time high locally and internationally and commodity farmers are reveling in this better time. Owning plantations that produces these cash crops is synonymous to owning goldmine.
In the livestock sector, opportunities abound for Nigerian farmers. Currently, industry records the lowest creativity in areas of secondary processing and value addition. On a recent visit to Shoprite, I discovered 95% of their processed livestock products are imported from South Africa. Buyers were picking up beef sauce, processed catfish, dairy products and processed meats from those shelves at the speed of light. On close interaction, I noticed these retailers are more than willing to stock products from Nigerian farmers that can process their livestock products into world class standards. The problem is that there are few local players currently playing in high network sector even though the market is available.
At the macro level, government is doing more than enough to make the agricultural investment climate friendly to the Nigerian farmer. The President‘s Agricultural Transformation Agenda is well on course. The scheme at full implementation would drive profitability of the value chain of cotton, cocoa, cassava, oil palm, maize, soyabeans, onion, rice, livestock, fisheries, tomato and sorghum. You know what this means? It means better times are here for producers of these commodities.
When popular musician T.Y.Bello was writing his famous line, “the land is green, its green oooh, the land is green, can’t you see, the harvest is ready ‘cos the Lord of the harvest told me so, its green”, he must have seen what I am seeing because indeed, the land is green. Better times are here again for the Nigerian farmers.
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NE;Tell the so called oil producers about this development.
ReplyDeleteA LOT IN TERMS OF LONG TERM CREDIT LINE WITHOUT THE BOTTLENECKS OF COLLATERAL AND CORRUPTION OR HIDDEN CHARGES BY BANKS AND GOVERNMENT AGENCIES STIPULATED TO AID THE GROWTH OF FARMING IN NIGERIA.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this piece. True & perfect!
ReplyDelete