Prospective Agro Business Investors Need Information To Succeed’

      Written by FELIX KUYE

 Ogo-IbokMrs. Ogo Ibok is a lawyer whose passion for agriculture has made her abandon her legal practice to become a consultant in the agricultural sector. In this interview with FELIX KUYE, she spoke on missteps by investors that spell doom for agro businesses in Nigeria and how to avoid them, using information.
When you talk about information in the context of investment in agro businesses, what exactly do you mean?

   We are talking about the knowledge of realities in that area of agriculture where you want to invest. This is very crucial for every prospective investor. Would-be investors must take practical steps to get informed and adequately exposed to the challenges and prospects. Because many of our people in the villages engage in agriculture, though at the subsistent level, there is tendency to see investment in agro business as something you can just jump at. No, you may eventually regret it. A lot of resources and precious time have been wasted on many agricultural projects, particularly by individuals and corporate organisations because what they were looking at was the profit they hope to make, there was less consideration of possible obstacles that may prevent the gains from being made.  Many people had invested heavily in some agro businesses before they started noticing some challenges they never envisaged, and so did not plan to tackle them.

     For example, if you are going into mass cultivation of tomato, that is if you want to be a tomato farmer, it is crucial to find out many things about the crop, including the right time to plant, the challenges faced by those already planting tomato and how they tackle them, the process and all the rest. When you see baskets of fresh and attractive tomato being transported to markets for sale and you envy the producers, you also need to know what he or she passed through before getting the crop out. Just jumping into cultivation of tomato because you have land to do so may turn out not to be a wise decision at the end of the day. The information you get or the knowledge you gather will help you to make informed decision based on facts. If you don’t begin like this, at the end of the day, you may lose a lot of money and other resources.

      Another example is if you want to go into mass production of Gari, it may not be wise to just get yourself engaging in it because the woman in the village does it almost daily. Again, you will need information about where to get the type of equipment required for the level of Gari production you want to engage in, where and how to get the equipment required, how and where to get the quantity of cassava for processing and the amount of money you will require to begin the business. What we do basically is providing information on agro businesses.

Young people, including those who do not have much knowledge of agriculture, are being encouraged daily to engage in farming and allied activities to reduce unemployment. How do you assist them?

       First, they need to know the investment opportunities in the agric sector and how to ensure success when you decide to tap these opportunities. The opportunities in the agric sector are enormous, they are not restricted to cultivation of crop and rearing of animals, you could go into provision of essential services, like what we do by providing information. Knowledge of what is available is very crucial to would-be investors in the agric sector. For, instance, recently we published something on cassava in our website. Cassava is one of the crops being focused in the Federal Government’s transformation agenda in the agric sector. Some technologies have been developed by the Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi (FIIRO) for use to transform cassava into flour and other forms, but a lot of people are not aware of that yet. So, when we published it, many people and organisations showed interest and were contacting us to say they were interested and asking about how to get involved, where and when to learn more about the devices. People need to know what is out there.

    Also, people must know what they are capable of doing, and this can be achieved through fact-finding moves. Somebody came from Abuja and wanted to establish a poultry in one of the south western states. We told him all he needed to know about the investment, including the chances of profitability. When we took him to meet some farmers one-on-one and have a first-hand information about the business, the man realised that the business is not for people like him. He would have gone into it and lose a lot of money. Knowledge of what you want to do is crucial. That is the essence of the services we provide.

       Also, there is always the need to assist prospective investors. A young man once came to us to say he has a vast land for cultivation of cassava but was financially handicapped. What we did was to help him start the business. We got the cassava planted for him and got a manager to manage the farm for him.

Do you engage directly in cultivation of crops or rearing of animals?

        We do not plant by ourselves, we work with partners who have the experience in agriculture. If somebody comes to us and says he wants to do something on fish farming, for instance, there are experts on fish farming that we engage to do the job. Ours is to ensure that the right thing is done, and done according to the best standards.

Is the agricultural fair you organize a yearly event? If not, when next do you hope to hold another edition?

     We may do the agric fair again to further educate the people on not just the investment opportunities but on issues in agriculture. Look at the use of pesticides. We need to educate people on how best to use pesticides, which are chemicals and can be very harmful. We know that if we don’t use pesticides properly, we may be doing disservice to ourselves and others. There are ways some people use it and unknowingly rendering some crops harmful for consumption.

Getting money to invest in agriculture is also a serious challenge. How do you help in this regard?

     The reason we are not doing much in that area yet is that the banks are not so particular about farmers because of the risks involved. They are more interested about people who are into processing. Some banks will only give you loan for equipment, they won’t give for farming. What we will like to do at some point is to start our own fund where we can give money to farmers and also work with them. The banks may not be able to work with the farmers, so if they must give you loan, they want to be sure that they will get their money back. But you can’t just plant today and get it tomorrow. When we give you loan, we will work with you to make sure you succeed and pay back.

 Some agric products go bad quickly now than before. Some people attribute this to use of fertilizer and others in farming. What information do you have on this?

     But even the organic people use fertilizer, though they use organic fertilizer. The truth is that the farmer must always replenish the soil. After planting in a particular place for years, you have to leave that land for a period of time to regain the lost nutrients. Fertilizer may be having negative effect on some crops, particularly in terms of the life span after harvesting because some of them go bad quickly these days. I eat yam in my house and I know that it does not last any longer.

How do you think Nigeria can boost food security?

     The situation in Nigeria is very complex. For example, growing or producing food crops is one thing, transporting them to where they are needed is another. If you ask many people, they will tell you that we grow enough food crop in this country to feed the population, but the truth is that what we waste is more than what we eat. A friend in Cross River State grows a lot of pineapple, avocado pear and a few others but majority of the crops go to waste. He said many of them are being poured away because nobody is buying them. To get the crops to a place like Lagos where they can be sold will cost him more than the products are worth because of bad roads and too many places where money is paid between Cross River and Lagos to different groups, governments and private bodies. If we can store the food being thrown away in Nigeria, the country will be a better place in terms of food security. The roads must be made good and the harassment on the roads be stopped. There is need to embrace modern storage system and put in place adequate facilities to store the food crops being wasted across the country.

You are a lawyer, how did you become a consultant or service provider in the agric sector?

    Yes, I am a lawyer, I practiced for about five years. But today, I run a firm called Essence-Agric which is an agric business consulting firm. I started the business out of frustration. I was trying to do something in agriculture, but because I had no exposure in agriculture then, I was not so sure of what I wanted to do, so I was trying to find information. I went online, I went everywhere, it was like there was no information. Then I decided to organize an agricultural fair which was held about three years ago and attracted major stakeholders in the sector, including the Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi, Lagos (FIIRO) and NIHORT. It was held in partnership with a company called EFInA. The turnout was more than expected. The rationale was to seek information about agriculture. At the end of the event, people and organisations started calling us, approaching us for information on different areas and issues in agriculture. This was how we started as provider of information on agriculture for actual and potential investors.

Culled from http://www.ngrguardiannews.com