Meet Lanre Howells, developer of farm estates
Many entrepreneurs are driven by passion to solve societal problems. For Lanre Howells, managing director of Beyond Building Investment Limited and Varden Farms and Resort, his driving force is to pioneer the development of commercial farm estates in Nigeria.
In the wake of the agricultural revolution in the country, Lanre saw the need to provide farmers with mechanisation and a complete farming ecosystem.
Lanre has been in the business of developing lands for clients, experimenting with different commercial real estate products. His vision is to make Varden Farms awesome, transforming it into one of the best farm estates in the country.
The Mass Communication graduate was inspired by his father who is a surveyor and the desire to be different in the industry. This prompted him to establish Varden Farms in 2014.
“In the advent of looking forward to being different was what gave birth to Varden Farms. Five years ago, we felt the need to explore and do news things, but we did not just want to start setting up farm lands. We were looking at the challenges of the people in that part of the real estate,” Lanre said.
The inspiration of the young entrepreneur also came during his days as an undergraduate. “While I was in school, I was already a business owner. I was in year one when I built my first shop. It was very challenging being a student and an entrepreneur,” he said.
“I also started Rent Masters in 2012 an online platform. With the platform, people could see the different type of houses they would like to rent rather than going through all processes— like seeing the agent and going to different places.
“As Rent Masters started to grow, we diverted into real estate to trade better to make sure that our platform represents everything we stand for. After graduation, we established the Beyond Building Investment,” he added.
Lanre started his business small and was able to raise his initial start-up capital from personal savings and from family and friends.
According to him, the business has grown tremendously since starting owing to integrity and excellent service it provides.
Lanre told Start-Up-Digest that Varden Farms has entered into partnerships with various organisations to provide farmers with tractors and train them on good agricultural practices that will help increase their yield per hectare.
“We have a partnership with a Chinese company that fabricates machineries here in Nigeria to provide farmers in Varden Farms with tractors and other farm machineries,” he said.
“We are training farmers and youths on agriculture. Our main goal with empowerment programme for farmers’ cuts across the entire value chain of various subsectors in the agricultural sector,” Lanre explained.
The business now has two farm estates in Epe with over 50 farmers currently, he said.
He said that Varden Farms is focused on organic farming. “We are very focused on organic farming and we are making sure that vegetables and livestock produced from our farms are organically grown,” Lanre said.
The communicator-turned-
He stated that owing to the current economic situation, most Nigerians are not looking at investing in the real estate sector, noting that this has reduced the market for the industry.
“There are challenges of funds, policy, quality of personnel, market and harsh economic situation where people cannot even feed let alone invest in real estate,” he said.
He called on the government to provide more funds for agriculture and also bridge the country’s huge infrastructural gaps to drive investments in the sector.
Lanre said that the business plans to establish a processing factory inside the farm estate to help farmers in storing and preserving their crops as well as ensuring off-taking of crops produced within the estate.
He stated that the business also plans to partner with the Lagos state government to empower 5,000 youths in agriculture within the next one year.
“Part of what we are doing is that we are trying to partner with the state government and in the next one year, we want to empower 5,000 youths on this project in Nigeria to see how we can build programmes and not just empower people and live them alone, but make it sustainable,” he stated.
Answering questions on his advice to other entrepreneurs, Lanre said “Strengthen your shock absorber, ignore the distraction, and put your eyes on the goal if you are a young entrepreneur. Passion will see you through; it is only a matter of time.”