Ellah Lakes Plc, Nigeria’s first agric firm to be quoted on Nigeria’s stock exchange, plans to become the country’s biggest pig breeder in the next eight months, according to its chairman, Joe Attueyi.
He said in an exclusive interview with BusinessDay in Abuja that the company is ready to stamp its feet on the piggery market.
Ellah Lakes competes with Oke-Aro Pig Farm, a hub for around 3,000 farmers managing over 240,000 pigs, also known as the largest pig farm in West Africa. It also competes with Ladi Adebutu’s Pig Farm as well as Porkvest and Agrecourse, which are equally big players in the industry.
The company is in the process of taking delivery of 300 pigs, in addition to the 200 already in stock, and has already mapped out a strategy to increase its herd to 50,000 pigs within five years through an optimised breeding programme, Attueyi said.
Ellah Lakes Agribusiness is listed on the Nigeria Exchange Group (NGX), with a market capitalisation of N8.2 billion and 2,873 shareholders.
The company boasts of 3,700 hectares (ha) in Enugu State for the mixed cultivation of cassava, maize and soybean. It also has 2,400 ha for oil palm plantation in Edo State, with 340ha set to start fruiting in 2024. It also boasts of a 5,000ha secured for mixed cultivation of cassava, maize and soybean in Ondo State and 2,804 ha in Ekiti State.
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According to Attueyi, “In Edo State, we have a huge farmland and one of the new initiatives we put out there is piggery, hoping that, in the next eight months, we will be the largest pig farm in Nigeria.”
“The strategy is to make us, hopefully, the largest pig farm in Nigeria in 18 months. It is going to take a lot of capital to do that. We are expanding the rice production facilities, which takes capital. We are collaborating with small-scale farmers to be facilitators of growth, or mentors to them, through training, improved seedlings,” he said.
Agriculture contributed 21.07 percent to Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) in real terms in the first quarter (Q1) of 2024. This is lower than the contribution in Q1 of 2023 and lower than that of Q4 of 2023 which stood at 21.66 percent and 26.11 percent respectively.
Attueyi explained that agriculture, done properly, can be a much bigger contributor to the nation’s economy.
“The agric sector provides an opportunity for both Nigeria and Nigerians to grow our economy differently.
“You could just focus and be a big agric-firm, or you could become a vehicle for small-scale farmers to empower them in the small places they are working to be more successful. And because you are their partner, the more successful small-scale farmers you have, the more successful you become,” he further said.
He revealed that Ella Lakes’ investments are growing as they are currently in Edo, Enugu, Ondo and northern Nigerian states and at different levels of operations.
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“Since the land is there, there are lots of smallholder farmers and we believe we already have a structure that can be easily replicated. We have invested in rice, cassava, piggery and oil palms across the states. We have significant hectares of palm produce and our goal is to replicate those in the new states we go to.”
Speaking on some of the challenges encountered in the sector, Attueyi listed insecurity, poor organisation, lack of funds and poor policy implementation as some of the key challenges militating against the sector.
Atuenyi said agric is a big business, and not a charity, noting that part of Ella Lakes’ job is to work with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to see how the sector’s challenges can be reduced or eliminated.
“There are a lot of things you have got to navigate in Nigeria. We are trying to engage the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and its minister to share some of these challenges and ideas on how they can be addressed.
“Then, there are issues of organization. Funding is also a challenge. It isn’t easy to bring dollars or find somebody who will put significant dollar investments into Nigeria today. If they do, they’ll probably prefer to put it in oil and gas. Other things are policy issues,” he noted.
He said part of Ella Lakes’ strategy is not just to build big farms but to collaborate with already existing ones.
“There are so many small-scale farmers all over Nigeria that we can collaborate with, share new knowledge, seedlings, better farming methods.”
He further said that his vision is to create a viable sector, noting however that it takes private and public sectors’ collaboration to do so.
“I want our company to be one of the solution providers. It is the collaboration I talked about because the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security is not going to get 10 percent of the budget. It therefore means we need to be creative and that is the value proposition we are sharing with the minister,” he noted.
