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‘Bitter experience with high value vegetables took us into Sorghum production’

‘Bitter experience with high value vegetables took us into Sorghum production’

Many people desert agriculture the first time they encounter substantial failure, but for WALE AKINTADE, managing director, Ikore Farms and Agritech Ltd, his challenges with producing high value vegetables meant he needed to think out of the box and find a new commodity. Akintade who is also vice-president, Southwest, National Association of Sorghum Producers, Processors and Marketers of Nigeria, shares some of his experiences with CALEB OJEWALE, on how profitable the business is becoming. Excerpts:

How long have you been into agriculture?

I have been into agriculture for about 3 and half years. Let me say I back stepped into Agric. I did not set out to be in Agric. My line of business has been marketing communications and I have worked in that industry all my life.

Somewhere along the line, we moved into food processing and it was in the course of trying to source raw materials – because of the fluctuating nature of the cost of raw materials in my food-processing factory – that I stepped back and we started looking at how we could get raw materials cheaper. It was then I stumbled into agriculture and I realized that yes, it is challenging but it is also very exciting. We took up that challenge and started farming high value vegetables such as cucumbers, cabbage and watermelon among others.

We also realized that we could do grains, particularly because of the fact that we could store grain for a much longer time. In the course of doing all of that, we also realized quite a whole lot of frustrating experiences in the course of farming. Particularly, if you are not one of those big boys who could fully mechanize your farm. We thought that we could do something to solve some of these problems that we were also facing, and that was what informed Farm Troopers.

What is Farm Troopers all about?

Farm Troopers is a farm labour service company and we do a few things. We play in the area of providing labour services to farm owners. We take it right from land preparation services all through to planting, managing, harvest to post-harvest and all of that.

If you are into crop cultivation, farming has gone beyond hoe and cutlass, so we have very smart hand-held equipment and tools that we have and use on the farm. For instance, depending on the nature of your farm, if it cannot be ploughed or is not tractorable, we could bring stomp grinders to make it tractorable.  We can use hand tractors, we can use proper tractors and whatever machinery is required. We prepare your soil. We can help you plan. We can also help you manage. We have  boom sprayers that we bring in. We can spray insecticides or fungicides or whatever it is that you intend to do. We can manage that process to provide services at different points for you, also to harvest and even drying services depending on what you have farmed, as post-harvest service.

Read also: Prospects, challenges of Nigerias agriculture in 2020

What would probably be more important to people is cost… [cuts in]

We are also very mindful of that. Do not forget that I said to you earlier on that we are first farmers. We ventured into Farm Trooper because of our own frustration in the course of farming, particularly in this part of the world where we all depend on labour to come from far places; even from neighbouring countries. So we are quite mindful of cost and what we have done is benchmark our costs and come down low on what you get on the streets. What that simply means is that if a particular service costs N10,000 on the street, with us you get it at about N9,000. Also, if it is going to take the manual labour people up to three days to do that work for you, we will get it done within a day or maximum of two.

Therefore, we save on time, save on cost and you save on quality because we do not use hoe and cutlass. We use light implements, light cultivators. We do not use 15metres Knapsack or whatever. Our sprayers are boom sprayers. The minimum we have is about 300 meters. What will take about 10 people to do for you at once, we get two people to do it and they do it and finish it in a jiffy. That’s the kind of service we offer;  very high on quality, saves on time and on cost.

What failures have you encountered in agriculture and how did you overcome them, perhaps, others can learn from them?

I started agriculture with high value (vegetable) crops, and I was particularly interested in that because of its short duration. Cucumber was ready for harvesting within a few weeks and other vegetables, within three or four months.  But then again, as beautiful as those things are, we also realized that in our own case, we are also vulnerable, particularly when dealing with market people.

You harvest your cucumber in the morning and you must sell it within the next 24 hours or else, it depreciates. The more it turns from green to light green to yellow; you are losing money or even the whole thing. But the beautiful thing again is that after that bitter experience, we chose to move into grains and we started doing sorghum.  Interestingly, I am the vice-president, Southwest, of the National Association of sorghum producers, processors and marketers of Nigeria.

We realized that with grains, you can hedge your volatility. If the price in the market is not so good, if you store your grains nicely, you can wait until the price improves and then you sell.  But with vegetables, we are desperate, we are at the mercy of some of the buyers and they can give you terms that are not favourable. They do not care how much you have spent. They just want to buy and make their money. But the truth of the matter again, what we have also realized is that with sorghum, there are a lot of industrial buyers. Nigerian Breweries is doing well in that area. Guinness is doing massively well in that area, and also Nestle. They are not just buyers, but industrial users of sorghum.

Interestingly, sorghum that grows in the north can also grow in every other part of Nigeria and we know that from our experience. We also know a whole lot of other people that we have encouraged to go into Sorghum farming, so we know it’s doable in the southwest likewise the south-south and southeast. If I knew about sorghum, I would have dabbled into it. But now that we are here, we are good with what we are doing, we can only do more. We are getting hungrier by the day. Because we realized that the market is expanding and governments in the southwest need to promote sorghum cultivation. In 2020, we are going to be embarking on a tour to sensitize Governors, Commissioners of Agriculture to ensure that they support sorghum farmers, so that it becomes a structured crop in the southwest.

What is the average yield of sorghum that you get per hectare?

We do about 2.8 to 2.9 tons per hectare but we know we can do better. In fact, our target is to be able to do 3.5 tons per hectare.

When  you did the cucumber and other vegetables, did you by any chance do an estimate of how much you lost?

Let me tell you the final straw that broke the camel’s back. I spent N1.4million, we had fungi infection, and it was a big loss. I am even ashamed to tell you how much we made from it to tell you how ridiculous it was.

How much?

Less than ₦400,000.

What do you think caused the fungal infection?

Fungal infections can be from a combination of so many things. It can be triggered by water or something in the atmosphere or even something in the soil.  Of course, again, if you also do not quickly manage your weeds, it could also stimulate it or enhance it.  So, you see, it’s a combination of so many things.

Fungal infections, actually, when you do crop farming, is one of the most difficult to handle. It is not like insect invasion that you can handle easily or termite invasion.  Most times for fungi, you do not know until you begin to see the effects and if you’re not careful, they spread quickly. It was a very bitter experience but then again, the reality of the matter is that we are here to stay. We realize that each challenge that we have encountered stirs up some thoughts in us and we look at how we can do things better.