According to Dr. Sam Talabi, the Managing Director, Talon Nig. Ltd, wise investments in agricultural production and similar activities would provide good job opportunities for young graduates. These include those with the requisite training as well as others willing to drop the quest for white-collar jobs and get trained.
Indeed, agricultural activities have for eons provided means of living as well as economic survival to people in rural environments. It would be recalled that in the pre- and post-independent Nigeria, the nation’s economic and developmental activities revolved basically around agriculture.
This trend continued with agro-allied activities breeding entrepreneurship activities, until the early 1970s, when the discovery of crude oil upstaged the great role of agriculture. For over three decades, there has been a declining interest on the part of our young graduates as regards making careers in agriculture. But the current clarion call for diversification of the economic base from crude oil and the global trend of bidding goodbye to fossil fuel provides yet another opportunity to go back to land.
Incidentally, “the neglect of the agricultural sector, which has continued to hike food prices in the market, has been described as an opportunity for discerning young men and women to make headways. An enterprising individual can start by making the known challenges in agriculture and agro-allied sector has stepping stones to success”, Talabi insists.
Agric experts have identified the factor that scares young people from farming is the fact that the quantities of products farmers produce are usually limited by the prospect of problems that make them perishable. For instance, food stuffs easily get spoilt and are usually sold at ridiculously low prices, thus making operators not to break even. This problem itself offers a business opportunity for thinking minds that would see one in creating a storage bridge between products and the market.
According to experts, what a discerning young man needs is to have a good plan of action, which can attract the needed fund from financial institutions. Some of the challenges include lack of access to credit facilities, land and office space, among other relevant facilities.
On his part, Shehu Mikail, the Chairman of Mastel Limited and also a thriving entrepreneur, says he has a strong passion for the development of agriculture in the country. He believes that before a country can be counted as one of the nation of the world it must be able to conveniently feed its population. Therefore he says direct farming offer different business opportunities for people who genuinely have the interest.
Mikail adds that the business of agro-allied is one area that involve the provision of chemicals and equipment that the can go into and be successful. Marketing agro- chemicals, he says, can be more thriving than going into farming operation.
The Mastel Limited boss, who says he is passionate about seeing young people aspire to become agricultural entrepreneurs, says he decided to set up consultancy services in this field, teaching people the technicalities involve in agro-ailled business. His vision, he says, has always been that once they know these intricacies, they can start different venture in the sector. He adds that the preoccupation of this firm is to bring more youths into the terrain through system and structure incentive.
To do this business, the expect says that a major thing an intending entrepreneur needs is a fair knowledge of the processes.
The most important things are your: business plan, finance sourcing skill and a good marketing strategy, he says.
He says that an intending entrepreneur may also need to understand the farming occupation and the different types of products available, including fertilizers of different types, equipment and product to venture into.
Chief Executive Officer Farmer Agro Mr. Chinedu Ibe note that though the agro-allied business is still much undeveloped in the country, it has the potential for growth.
Despite the general outlook, he says marketing of agricultural product alone can even generate business for young people. For instant, a young man can decided to explore the business of dealing in wholesale yam marketing. He observes that most of the perishable crops available in the market are product in the rural areas.
“These are areas, where yam species are farmed and cheaply traded. What a young discerning entrepreneur needs to do is to raise some capital and make enquiries on where the product can be cheaply sourced. Another aspect is to identify market in cities, where the product can be sold, and there are many of such in Lagos and other cities,” he says.
He, however, note that there may be the need for an intending entrepreneur in his business to have a good idea of agriculture, backed by good marketing strategies. His worry is about the deficiency in road infrastructure in the country, which hinders the transportation of agricultural product.
Nigeria contribution to the Gross Domestic Product is an impressive 40% however, that is where it stops because it has one of the lowest yields in the whole world.
Huge potentials exit for the following crop: Cereals: Maize, rice, sorghum, corn, millet, wheat. Root crops: cassava, yam, ginger, potato, coco, yam. Legumes: soya beans, groundnuts, cowpeas, fruits: Mango, banana, fruits: Mango, banana, orange, guava, papaw, pineapple.
Vegetable: Cabbage, green pepper, carrots, lettuce, spice, onions, melons.
Tree crops: Oil Palm, coca, rubber, coconut, kola nut, coffee, she nuts beniseed, cotton, cashew nut, sugar cane.
Other: commercial growing of flowers and ornamentals and experimental orchards for more temperate fruits-apples, grape vines and pears have been successfully established in the high plateau regions.
- Food processing and preservation involving industries that will use agricultural product as raw materials (see previous chapters).
- Livestock and Agriculture and agro-industries production: which possess great potentials for development? Grazing lands are abundant, facilities for animal feed production are plentiful, and the in-land rivers, takes and coastal creeks are sufficient to augment ocean fishery resources.
c Agricultural inputs supplies and machinery, water resource development: especially for flood control infrastructure and irrigation
d Commodity trading and transportation.
e Development and fabrication of appropriate small-scale mechanized technologies: for on-farm processing and secondary processing of agricultural product
g Exploitation of timber and wood processing of activities: A wide range of wood resources abound
These find useful application in food and beverage sub-sector like flour mills, breweries, chemical pharmaceuticals, pulp and paper, wood product and industrial starch.
Ayo Oyoze Baje
