THE FALL OF CRUDE OIL and the NEED to embrace the alternative wealth source in Nigeria

First of all, that alternative and yet to be fully embraced source of wealth in Nigeria is Agriculture.

For many years Nigeria has been overly dependent on the wealth generated from Crude Oil. And according to International Monetary Fund, the Country’s oil sector accounts for over 95% of export earnings and about 40% of Government revenues. A fact that screams:

'Take crude oil money away from Nigeria and she get to financially shake to her roots as a Nation'.

Despite being Africa’s Largest Producer of Crude oil, sixth largest in the world actually, this achievement regardless has refused to ‘wow’ a lot of concerned personalities that I know from incessantly ringing the alarm, even sometimes getting agitated over the need for the Country to diversify her wealth source.  

Agriculture remains the best ‘distraction’.

Narrating the intelligence of equally other oil producing Nations of the world, over the past decades Saudi Arabia after having achieved self-sufficiency from the proceeds gotten from oil, now focuses on the massive exportation of specific Agricultural products like wheat, barley and millet, just to mention a few.

Canada with all of her wealth today stands tall as one of the top five wheat exporters on this planet.  And another oil producing nation which is China despite the over one billion humans that inhabits their space, not only feeds their own but accounts for as much as 35% of total world’s rice production.

The main Agricultural products in Nigeria being rice, cassava, ginger, cocoa-butter and nuts, in recent times we have lost our place as one of the world's largest exporter of cocoa and palm oil. Crops we relished as top producers in the 70s even all through 80s and according to history.

Therefore, if the fall of crude oil prices globally is anything to go by, not when food shortages brought about by the incidence of the Covid-19 pandemic now is imminent, the best time to go back to the farm like I have always advocated is right now.

Who would ever imagine that the ‘almighty’ United States of America would today be complaining of the shortages of some food items? Canada was also touted to most likely face same challenge this summer amidst turmoil in supply chain.

All of this alone normally should awaken ‘Nigeria’ into wanting to get really serious with farming, so that we can begin to think of exporting to countries in specific need when the occasion demands it. But then the realistic question is, are we even well fed as a nation?

Undoubtedly, we have one of the best of lands, ably romanced by a very good weather that supports farming. So expectedly, anyone with a very good vision and a clear foresight should know that putting the right factor in place, Nigeria has all it takes to give China a run for rice production for instance, while also focusing on tubers like cassava and yam. Cocoa plantation, we could further intensify on, yet we have unconsciously chosen to remain adamant until now that this harsh reality is beginning to rear.

           

            It is appalling that most of us are even totally clue-less about the germinating periods of some very important food crops and fruits to start with. On this, let’s quickly brush up first of all.

·        It takes Carrot between 70 to 80 days to get to maturity.

·        Onions, a 100 to 170 days.

·        Cocoa’s growth takes about a period of between 3-5 years. And then the tree stays productive for an average of 25 years.

·        It takes an oil palm about 4 years to grow to maturity and afterwards it produces palm kernels for an average period of 30 years. Note that the fruits mature between 5-6 months from pollination to maturity.

·        You have a honey farm and in 4 to 6 months, the honey introduced into the hive is ready to produce.

·        It takes a Yam about 14 weeks to mature.

·        Rice which seems the newest gold mine in Nigeria going by the border closure to foreign breeds even before the pandemic, becomes harvest-able in about 3 to 5 months.

·        Cassava is ready to turn to some cash-liquid for a farmer in 8-12 months, and this has exceptionally been an item from time immemorial.  

From the fear of how to start out as a total rookie in farming to being out-rightly clue-less on how to go about venturing into same, let the interview below with these farming entrepreneurs guide you.

Mr. Adeniyi Philip Ayoola is a man of many parts. A farmer and an Agric-entrepreneur, he runs two Agric-related face-book pages, The Initiative for a Greener Africa (IG Africa), a social enterprise that supports Women and Youths in Agriculture, and farmer’s-hub. Most importantly an Agric-Business Consultant and a digital strategist,  Mr Ayoola tutor farmers on how to leverage the value chain to increase their brand visibility.

“Most businesses in Nigeria or in other parts of the world for that matter are in business for profit making purposes. This is why we use digital platform and Social Media Search engine Optimization to increase visibility for the brand, and also increase sales which ultimately leads to profit” He said.

Meanwhile Mr Akeem Somefun is a farmer entrepreneur too. Specifically, he is the founder of ARAF Farms. And asides being a producer also offers Consultancy, mentorship, likewise training for farming start-ups. Basically, he focuses on tree crops like Cashew and Oil Palm, he also plants citrus and vegetables alongside tendering to animals like sheep and goats. He has this to say;  

“Tree crops brings long term returns and I most times refer to them as retirement plans. If you have a ten-acre of cashew for instance, even if you no longer work, every year you can be assured of at least three million naira from your farm. All you need to do is to ensure a proper maintenance to be duly carried out on your farm and you’re good.” He concluded.

Interviewed at different times yet same questions put forward, the responses of these two has been intertwined but denoted by the mention of their first names for your pleasure.

Excerpts:

 Nigeria has been overly dependent on crude oil for decades no doubt. And with the recent fall in price, what is your take on swiftly diversifying into Agriculture which is another equally money-spinning venture but grossly neglected over the years?

 AYOOLA: - “ No soothsaying when we say that Agriculture has the capacity to generate as much income as oil to the Government. If you would recall in the Pre-Colonial Era and even at some point afterwards, Nigeria depended a lot on wealth generated from Agriculture. It was with revenues generated from Agriculture that we were able to achieve all what we called landmarks as at that time.  Nationwide Agric-production even used to be quite competitive, from the South-West having cocoa as its main source of income, to the South-Eastern States owning more of Palm-Oil and the Northern part dominating the groundnut industry.  This means that Agriculture can give the ‘money’ that oil is giving, just that we haven’t been giving much attention to it”.

“Nigeria has concentrated too much on the exportation and income generated from Crude oil and PMS/PKO importation, so much that not many people are aware that Nigeria has over 82 million hectares of arable land for cultivation of different crops and plants. That means we can grow almost everything on the planet earth. Yet we are not taking advantage of this our huge resource in terms of land-mass that is good enough for the production of food”.

“Instead we have depended largely on the importation of what we are capable of producing locally, exporting what we should not like raw materials and human resources too, the one we call brain-drain. This is why I advise that the Nigerian Government must look inwards and leverage the huge land resource that we have, coupled with the large population to boost the production for local consumption. And also supporting our farmers to produce more than enough. With this we can begin to export more to generate foreign exchange. And that’s also very important because most economies of the world have gone idle at this time. A lot of resources are being wasted concurrently, so if we can take advantage of these moments, it will greatly boost our income and help us meet our immediate needs too”

 “As far as I am concerned by the way, come post covid-19 era, Agriculture would be the game changer and it will only be for those who are able to take advantage of it”.

SOMEFUN:   “Our first mistake as a nation was abandoning agriculture when we discovered oil. More has actually been done with revenues gotten from Agriculture in the past. We hear of the cocoa, rubber and oil palm plantations in the south and groundnut pyramid of the North, cotton and all that were the mainstay of the Northern Economy. All these products provided raw materials to our industries but since we abandoned Agriculture, all the companies depending on these raw materials had to close down. Yet we bitterly complain of unemployment, oblivious of the fact that the nonchalance of a sector, could damage the other unexpectedly, yet we begin to find solutions in the wrong place”.

       There’s this notion amongst those working white collar jobs that farming isn’t as profitable as expected, or as compared to the level of ‘stress’ expended on it, you agree? Besides, what are the best ways to start out?

AYOOLA:  “Well, farming like most other businesses is really not for the weak and the feeble minded, but for the strong hearted, consistent, committed, persistent minds. It is however not devoid of its ups and downs. And about profit making, I think it is relative”

“Person A invests 10 Naira, hoping to get back a 1000 Naira worth of returns in a year totally contrasts with person B that has invested same amount, and is not expecting more than 50 naira on the same venture. So, profit in this context is a question of the angle you are looking at it from. Although farming is money spinning but it remains a garbage in and garbage out, where what you give is what you get. How much investment you give into it totally determines the returns. And in as much as farming is not a Ponzi scheme, it is also very profitable, but not your regular kind of trade, ‘a quick rich venture’ as it requires not only a tad level of patience, but some degree of expertise and farming knowledge too”.

“Buttressing profit-making avenues, bear in mind that Agriculture is divided into plant and animals. Plants is subdivided into the open field and the green house, one which is the controlled environment for crop production. If you’re venturing into an open field production, you need to understand a couple of things like the testing of the soil to know the composition like its nitrogenous or phosphorus content. Also study the weather, the type of seedling to be planted, the overall farming environment and the market for produce sales. Not forgetting the application of manure and fertilizers, the herbicides and pesticides, understanding the kind of pests that attacks what you’re planting”.

“Farming generally requires a lot of patience, time and investment, commitment and expertise”.

“A lot of patience I would emphasize again because, sometimes in the first one or two years of farming, the profit might not stream in as expected. This explains why it is always advisable to start small. You might invest too much money at first and then the loss becomes so unbearable, and you go bankrupt and then begin to propagate how bad the farming business is. Learn from people with much experience, part of which is learning from their mistakes. Attend trainings and consult. In this line of business like many other, it requires you to grow from being a baby-farmer to a toddler before becoming a farming-adolescent, then a teenager and then an ‘adult-farmer’. You compulsorily have to go through that process unless you have the funds of Dangote to do trial and maybe zero error. You could start out with farming for personal consumption, before plunging into the streams of commercialized farming”.

“Another very good way to start out is to form a cooperative between families/friends of like minds. Gather your resources together and most importantly understand what your visions and missions are. Asides farm production, there are other equally profitable aspects like the processing of farm produce. You can build a factory to mop up supplies from local farmers. So is marketing of farm produce where you market directly from the farm to the grocery stores in the cities. All of these are what we call the value chain and not just the primary production. And if I must be sincere with you, the most difficult part of the Agricultural value chain is the primary production, and that’s where the farmers are. They are the ones that bears the most risk. So, if you’re investing into Agriculture, understand where you want to come in from. Is it as a producer, processor, transporter or marketer of Agricultural produce? Bearing in mind that the profit side of it is not rocket science. You can also partner and invest with established farms that has already gone into the rigorous process of understanding what they do and has broken-even”.

     SOMEFUN: “In actual fact, farming as a profession is not what you do in absentia. Those that are complaining about the non-profitability of Agriculture, sees farming as a back-up plan. Not like they have enough experience required before embarking on it. Farming is one profession that can give you a consistent return for as long as 50 years. Something a white-collar job may not avail you. So, you must be ready to get your hands dirty if you really want to go into farming, and ensure you attach yourself to a successful farmer who will mentor and guide you through the process. One needs to be prepared and also ensure you are solving a problem around you. Not just going into farming without doing due diligence”.

 How is the commercialization of Agriculture in Nigeria?

AYOOLA: “Farming obviously has gone beyond the use of crude equipment like just cutlass and hoe. The truth is that people with less than 5 hectares of land are called small farmers. Before you can be termed large or medium scaled, you really need to have more than that. Technology has also helped overtime with reducing the spaces used yet increase in the produce realized. For instance, in the Green house farming (which is the controlled farming) 1 hectare of land if well and technologically managed can give what 5 hectares crude farming would, if not more than. Far from the use of crude implements now, we now use tractors, droughts to spray, tillers to till the soil to soften it. Asides old school styled open field, people now farm in a concealed and controlled environment. Like farming in controlled water (aquaculture), not many people even know that we can plant in the air, this is without the involvement of soil and it is called aeroponics. In lieu of soils, plant roots hang in the air by taking nutrient solution from a watery mist. In an instance whereby the fertile land becomes desert, aeroponics to the rescue. You see, these are different ways through which technology has helped to increase access to food-production around the world.”

            What roles needs to be played by the government towards supporting farmers, going by your experience.

AYOOLA; “Those that are fully into farming in Nigeria are currently into it usually out of self-drive and motivation. Give it up to the farmers, we are great people. We are here to make waves for those who are coming behind. We do not require too much from the government, access to the farm via good roads is not too much to ask to produce the food that would feed every-one of us. Stable electricity for processing, water supplies for the crops too. See, we currently pay through our noses to power processing equipment. Sometimes we jointly grade our roads ourselves which already is a debit on what we were supposed to keep as profit. If you have a million naira to invest into farming for instance, you’ll have to first of all consider sinking a bore-hole, and depending on the area this is between 200,000- 400,000 Naira. And in some places, you can cough out as much as a million naira for the same purpose. You see, almost a million naira is already tampered with even before starting out at all’.

“Another is access to farming inputs and equipment, fertilizers too. To those of us farming in the South West, there’s a bit of injustice there because the same bag of fertilizer sold for 5,000 naira in the North goes for between 9,000-10,000 naira down South”.

“There also goes the effects of bad roads leading to our farms, on the Tyre of our vehicles cannot be overlooked. I get to change Tyres more often than those that drives for pleasure. We also invest heavily on the shock absorbers of the trucks, brake absorbers too. The rainy season are the worse periods for these roads. A lot of farming activities gets to be restricted. Vehicles gets get-stucked in the mud when it rains thereby delaying supplies. Loans given out to farmers should be made-easy and increased. It should be made-available such that it goes round the real and genuine farmers”.

SOMEFUN:  “The governments at all levels have been paying lip-service to supporting farmers. To access Agric-loan is very stressful and sometimes unrealistic for an average farmer to meet up with bureaucratic criteria of the bank. Farming incentives like giving out of tractors, seeds/seedlings, fertilizers are not readily available. In other climes, especially in Europe and America, their Governments subsidizes by buying farm produce at higher amount from farmers especially when there is a glut, this will encourage the farmers to do more the next farming season. Many products are wasted as we don't add values to them. Provision of processing units within farming communities would reduce wastages. Single digit loans that can be easily accessed should be provided to the farmers and also, value addition should be encouraged by the government. This will create more jobs too. For instance, I am presently working on a cashew project, and I’m like, rather than exporting all our nuts in its raw forms, we can be processing it for export. This will add more value to the nuts and jobs will be created along the value chain of cashew. As it is, we are not getting full value for our cashew nuts due to non-value addition. This is why I also farm tree crops. It poses less risks and maintenance costs is low. Also, the possibility of getting ROI (returns on investment) for at least 50 years with good management is possible”.

Suggest ways through which farming can be made attractive to a wide range of Nigerian youths that are equally unemployed.

AYOOLA: “Bring infrastructures, attractive ones like that of the cities to the villagers and migration becomes easy for the youths enough to go back to the farm. On a lighter mood, DSTV to watch premier leagues, then good roads to journey at will to cities, internet reach at villages that plays host to these farms to further surf the internet to gain more knowledge. Putting all of these in place, they’ll stay on the farms. Inputted support to young farmers, technical support too through the Extension Officers. Make Agric loans with low interest be made easily accessible to individuals willing to farm and existing farmers alike. Support is needed to sell excess produce whenever that comes up. Active Agric exportation plans to be put in place, adequate compensation for risk absorption too is needed. This is when you produce and no one is ready to take, like when there’s excess in the usually choky markets with no basic outreach, it leads to low income and that alone is discouraging and even frustrating. Agric insurance to be fairly put in place. And a lag that I would like to point out from Insurance Companies is the fact that they don’t pay claims promptly and timely enough to correct damages done on our farms when we go for it. This is discouraging. Not many farmers are conversant with Agric-insurance anyway, this should be encouraged, like in the event of disasters like flooding, fire, there’ll be a cushion effect for them”.

SOMEFUN:     “When you visit most villages, the young people have left for the cities in search of greener pastures and white-collar jobs. This is taking a heavy toll on the output from the farms. Lesser hands to work on the farm could be mitigated if govt provides basic amenities to our hinterlands. Make farming attractive by investing more in the rural areas so that the lure of city life will not take away all the young able-bodied hands from the villages. Govt should support rural farming communities by providing them with roads to be able to get their goods to the market, provide them with health care facilities, educational facilities and so on to discourage rural urban drift”.

Is it possible to start small as a farmer (subsistence farming) and still climb up to become successful as it is experienced with most businesses?

AYOOLA: “Ultimately, no crime in starting small for whatever thing in life. So in agreement to that, if you’re not working with an established organization/body or investment company, starting out as an individual, even if you’re grouped as a cooperative, it is important that you start small especially when do you not have people in your group that are already tested and trusted.”.

“Unapologeticaly start little. It is even advisable to start from your garden at home before launching into the bigger market. Start small, start local, but think big, think global, yes, that’s the spice of life. You can grow into a larger company from your home.  I actually started out so small into what I have now. And as I speak, I still try as much as possible to improve my capacity by leveraging on other parts of the value chain, exploring other processes to make more profits. It is not casting stone, never a one-off thing. There must be a continuous learning too, very important, consistent learning, be persistent as well, while also seeking to improve yourself in the area of business”.

SOMEFUN:  “Yes, it is very possible. All you need is consistency and prudent resource management, especially in tree crops. You can start with a plot and as resources improve, you grow it and continue like that for a few years until you can boast of having farmlands worth more than fifty hectares of land. Just set a target and keep to it and you will become very successful

 General/closing advice to all who might now want to consider what you do/farming?

AYOOLA:  “You must first of all be resilient, be self-driven and prepare enough to wait for like 1-2-3 years or even 5 years if possible before the major break. (Sometimes not in all cases, others were luckier). Which is why it is always very important not to put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t deep your two feet into the water, you may drown. What I am saying is that, if you currently have a job, continue with it while you start your farming business. Don’t say you want to resign and totally go into farming when you have not previously started out. You may bite your fingers”.

SOMEFUN:   “The future of this country lies in Agriculture. Young people should begin to carve a niche for themselves in Agriculture with the different areas like Crop production which is very vast, then there are Animal Husbandry, fishery, marketing and value addition and so on. Just get yourself trained on the field in the area that interests you. I am always emphatic on training because what we were taught in university is not enough to take to the field, most are theories and to be well grounded you need practical experience.

·        Adeniyi Philips Ayoola's details viz:

Instagram@ Adeniyi.ayoola

                        Twitter; ayo116

E-mail address. ayoola116@gmail.com

Telephone;  +2348069022940

·        Somefun Akeem can be contacted on;

IG and Twitter;  somameerah

E-mail address is- somefunakeem@yahoo.co.uk

Telephone:   08029183032 and 08067391648