To support the current diversification drive and mitigate the impact of oil price, Hastom Food Farms Limited is creating wealth for investors through the establishment of cashew plantations.
Hastom Farms through its online platform bring investors’ funds together to invest in procuring the land and seedlings for the production of cashew.
Unlike other agric-tech organisations that connects investors to farmers, Hastom invest investors funds in planting and maintaining plantations on their behalf, thereby, serving as the farmers.
“Through our Hastom Farms platform people can invest in cashew trees and we sell a minimum of 10 trees per investor,” Debo Thomas, chief executive officer, Hastom Food and Farms Limited said during a farm tour.
“We use investors fund to pay for land lease, land clearing and seedlings as well as other inputs to farm cashew nuts.”
“For as low as N125,000 for a unit, investors can plug into our Cashew Investment Plan and keep getting paid for the next 40 years,” Thomas said.
According to him, investors are guaranteed at least 20 percent return on investments in the first 3 years, when the farm is intercropped with other crops.
Between 10 and 11 percent is paid to investors from the 5th year till the 40th year when the investment is terminated.
He encourages interested investors who are willing to invest to visit http://www.cashewbiz.com/welcome to invest.
He noted that the organisation has continued to build trust among investors with persistence.
Hastom Food and Farms Limited is currently investing massively in the cultivation of the crop and with plans to start adding value.
The company has cultivated cashew trees on about 550 acres in Ogbomosho, Oyo state and making investments across the value chain.
Nigeria is rated as the fourth-largest producer of cashew nuts in Africa and sixth in the world, with a 275,000 metric per annum in 2019 and is expected to reach 500,000 metric tons by 2025, according to the National Cashew Association of Nigeria.
Cashew has become a top-notch cash crop in Nigeria and it is one of the focused commodities by the Buhari led government to revamp the Nigerian economy.
It is eaten and also serves as industrial raw materials in firms producing chemicals, paints, varnishes, insecticides and fungicides, electrical conductress, and several types of oil among others.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that Nigeria exported N35.7 billion ($116million) worth of cashew in the first nine months of 2019.
It was exported to the United States, Vietnam, Russia, Germany, Italy and many parts of Europe.
Currently, Saviour Daniels an investor with Hastom Farms described his experience with the farm as satisfying owing to their on-time payment of a return on investment.
“I saw the advert one afternoon in 2017 and decided to trust them with my tiny investment on 3 acres of cashew- cassava project and I have not regretted the decision,” Daniel said.
“I also love the detailed investment dashboard and farm updates. It gives me peace of mind because I know what is happening with my farm at every point in time,” he added.
Josephine Okojie
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