‘Youths can become agric entrepreneurs with little funds’

Agripreneurs

Agric entrepreneurs or agro-entrepreneurs tagged ‘agripreneurs’ are people engaged in one or more aspects of agriculture as a business and not just as a way of life. The agricultural value chain is fully loaded with lots of agribusiness opportunities from the farm to table. We have seeds, pesticides and herbicides producers, fabricators, repairers or suppliers of mechanised implements for land clearing, planting, harvesting, processing, etc., and also food processors, packages producers, marketers and so on.

Nigeria need to support its youths and empower them enough to take agriculture to enviable heights, reduce unemployment and create wealth for the nation. Youth means power, energy, drive, tremendous potential, limitless possibilities. This support ranges from capacity building by way of training, mentoring to financing.

Funding

There is urgent need for a specialised fund for youths engaged in agriculture. I recommend a N50 billion Nigerian Agribusiness Fund For Youths (NAFFY).

This fund should be used exclusively for financing agribusinesses owned and run by Nigerian youths from ages 18 to 40, without collaterals and at single digit. The average Nigerian graduate or youth is not likely to have a house or property so they must not be expected to bring collaterals.

Employment

At least, 50,000 youths or even more can be supported with such a fund. These 50,000 youths will in turn employ at least two youths each, resulting in 150,000 direct jobs and hundreds of thousands of jobs through linkages to such businesses. With this strategy we can quickly create jobs for our youths.

Government efforts

President Goodluck Jonathan should be applauded for the choice of the current minister of agriculture, Akinwunmi Adesina, who has been able to talk Nigeria into seeing agriculture as a business. He has introduced lots of novel initiatives to grow agriculture. He got us to see what we lose by our huge food import bills and what we stand to benefit if we can substitute the import of food with local production of same. The food importing cartel of course does not like such a minister of agriculture.

But no matter what people think or say, we need to support him in this food production revolution. All that is required is focus, discipline and time and Nigeria’s agriculture will never be the same again.

Ideas for youths

With as low as N50,000, youths can start some agro-based businesses and grow from there to real farming. These include:

“Peppered barbequed boli”(roast plantain)

Get women that are already experienced in roasting plantain. Keep them at neat strategic places within the university campus with their boli stands (grill). They must be neatly and uniquely dressed with a beautiful banner behind each stand (Your business name written on the banner). With five or more stands you have already created a franchise. You can order for pickup loads of raw plantain from places such as Oyo, Ogun, Ondo and Edo states. Supply your network of roasters. Give advisory services to the women on hygiene, customer services and so on. This way you offer people a healthy snack that will improve their health. With time, you can start exploring the possibility of farming plantains solely or in partnership with others. The advantage is that you already have a market before going into farming.

“One finger”

The idea is to sell just one banana stalk for N10 only. You can use bicycles to deliver bananas. As students go for lectures they can just pay N10 for a stalk of banana and eat healthy. The agric entrepreneur in this case will be known as “One finger.” Some can buy more than one finger. In this case, there is also opportunity for backward integration.

“Quick garri snack”

All you need is nylon and sealer. Buy clean garri from processors, buy sugar and groundnut in bulk; pack the three into a nylon and seal with a label of your business name and contact details. Make it a cheap, ready to eat meal. You may decide to go into cassava farming later or just buy cassava and process yourself.

All these are simple initiatives that students can start and build while still in school, and then develop into large-scale farming or processing after graduation.

School curriculum

Agriculture has gone beyond the use of hoe and cutlass to the use of modern day techniques and technology. The school curriculum should be reviewed to get agriculture taught in a way that will be attractive to children and youths.