Agriculture: Goldmine for young entrepreneurs

Many Nigerians may not know that a lot of young people are now involved in agriculture value chain, redefining the way the business of farming is done and tapping opportunities therein. Youths generally exert much energy on whatever they do, and this is already reflecting on various sub-sectors they play.
Who are these young entrepreneurs making their mark on the soil? We will name them here and tell their stories to encourage other young people to learn the value of hard work and tap opportunities in agriculture.
David Caleb Usman
Have you been involved in a failed poultry business before? Poultry is an unpredictable business in Nigeria because birds die very easily. Also, there has been egg glut in many parts of the north, which discouraged and pushed many players away.
But failure does not discourage David Caleb Usman, who started farming at age 16. He started with 1,000 layers but lost all of them. Many young people like him would have lost all hope but he persevered. Today, the story is different.
According to enterprise54.com, David has 21,000 birds after spending six years in the industry. His farm is valued at N62 million and he has staff strength of over 15. More importantly, he has gone fully into mechanised farming, introducing latest technologies into his business. He is the chief executive of Team Galaxy Limited.

Rotimi Williams

Rotimi is the founder of Kereksuk Rice Farms located in Tunga, Nasarawa State. The 37-year-old has 45,000-hectare rice farm in the state, which is the second largest commercial rice farm in Nigeria in terms of land size. The farm, which started in 2012, is worth over N450 million.
Williams studied Economics at his graduate and post graduate levels. After spending time in consulting, he went into farming because that was the only way he could feed Nigerians.
“I have a knack for adventure. I always wanted to change lives and still achieve the goals that I set for myself, which was to grow rice, make money and impact lives. This was why I found myself in Nasarawa State farms,” Williams told Start-Up Digest.

Having produced paddy (raw) rice for some time, Rotimi procured a medium-sized processing mill to process and bag his own rice.

“I actively started in 2012. I came in as a consultant to raise funds for a firm for its rice project and my interest grew, because I was visiting a lot of rice farms regularly and reading about rice projects. I raised the funds but we couldn’t access it. The foreign bank that was supposed to fund us pulled out after signing the first draft project facility agreement. So we were stuck. I then made a proposal to the owner of the project to allow me to start small on the farm and whatever was made would be shared on a 50/50 basis. This was how I got involved in rice production,” he explained to Start-Up Digest.
But Williams did not have it rosy. After clearing some portions of land, he started with 50 hectares and later increased to 100 hectares the following planting season. However, he recorded losses on both occasions.
“In 2015, we did 1000 hectares and that was when the Lagdo Dam in Cameroun got flooded and the entire area was flooded. So we lost much of everything we had put in—amounting to about 4,000 tons of rice. We couldn’t plant as much as we did in 2015 in the first half of 2016 because of the loss we incurred, owing to flood,” he said.
But this has not discouraged him. He is expanding his plantations to ensure that his dream of feeding millions of Nigerians comes to fruition.
Williams has also succeeded in solving one of the biggest problems facing farmers today, which is herdsmen onslaught.
He engages and has trained over 810 Fulani women who work for him.

Aderonke Aderinoye
Aderonke founded Agrihub Nigeria. A graduate of Biochemistry from the University of Lagos, Aderonke has over 6 years’ experience in agriculture.
Her Ivory Green City (IGC) in Ogun State agri-cultural estate scheme trains new generation farmers, providing them with an opportunity to grow crops, store, process their produce and acquire relevant on-site training.
She is an alumna of the US consulate’s International Visitors Leadership Programme (Farm to Table 2013); alumna of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme (2015); win¬ner of WIMBIZ (2015), and a finalist at British Council Enterprise Challenge 2016.
Her love for farming blossomed in Borno State during the mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
After her NYSC, she worked on a farm in Epe, Lagos, growing and processing cassava and oil palm but couldn’t stay there for too long owing to lack of funding.
After a failed venture in fashion, she got a job in the bank where she worked for five years. While in the bank, the entrepreneur tried several agricultural ventures and lost a lot of money. She then had to resign to do full-time farming.
“We need to begin to understand in Nigeria that improvement of the agricultural sector is not in the hands of government alone and is not limited to farming or primary production alone. There is a whole value chain that needs to be developed apart from farming within the agricultural space, as a photographer, lawyer, accountant, engineer, all your skills are needed to develop the agricultural sector,” she told BusinessDay.

Richard Agetu
Richard Agetu is the cofounder of Richsi Nigeria Limited, a start-up that deals in fish processing and packaging in Abuja.
Richard produces a brand of smoked fish known as Ejazuki. The firm was established in 2016.
Richard was inspired to establish his business out of his quest to address the issues of post-harvest losses and Nigeria’s product rejection at the international borders.
“I worked with farmers and realised that post- harvest losses and rejections of our produce within the international borders are the major issues farmers face. To address this challenge, we established Richsi Nigeria Limited to employ best practices in processing and packaging of fish that can compete with other products internationally,” Richard said.
The fishery graduate told Start-Up Digest that the business was established with an initial start-up capital of N300,000, which he got from his personal savings and his partner making his own contribution.
The business has received funding from the Tony Elumelu Foundation to scale up.
“We design and produce the packaging materials from scratch ourselves here in Abuja. As a green enterprise, we use eco-friendly and re-cyclyable materials to produce the packaging,” he said.
He noted that youths will only find agric attractive when there is innovation and the government are able to follow through policies and programs in the sector irrespective of change in government.

ODINAKA ANUDU