WHY YOU SHOULD STRONGLY CONSIDER AGRICULTURE

Silver and gold I have none. But I can at least share my discovery about agriculture that could fetch you millions (or even billions), if you are willing to go through the process.

It is safe to say that agriculture is the ‘new crude oil’. Agriculture can never lose its value. Agriculture can never go into extinction. Agriculture is as old as man himself. Man can’t survive without agriculture. Although, people are gradually coming to terms with infinite opportunities and humongous profit agriculture offers (often by chance), but a considerable number of people are still in dark or maybe misinformed about how well agriculture can boost the economy of an individual and (by extension) the nation.

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Most people still look at agriculture from the subsistence point of view (no thanks to the government, academia and agriculture institutes), paying little or no attention to the commercial aspect, that’s even if people believe anyone can really make anything out of agriculture.

Gone are the days when farming was for the lowly, illiterate and rural dweller. Farming is now a serious business that all must embrace regardless of the location; level of education and employment status (employed or job hunting).

What you can now make out of agriculture is bigger than how the society sees the field. Nobody should be discouraged not to take up agriculture as a discipline. Regardless of the how the society continues to see it, it doesn’t stop the influence and the impact it has on humanity. The importance of agriculture to mankind can’t be over emphasized or relegated to the background. You can’t go wrong practicing agriculture. As a matter of fact, anybody can practice and make something big out of agriculture.

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In Nigeria, we have experienced shortage of food supply which led to the hike in the price of foodstuffs. Such wouldn’t have been the case if every family is practicing agriculture (at least at a small scale), by so doing, you have something to eat as a family and sell to others.

Away from the introduction, let’s get down to the business of the day which has to do with why you should strongly consider agriculture. To start with, I would itemize reasons (which I have narrowed down into three parts) before going further to explain, which are:

·         FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE

·         PERSONAL CONSUMPTION

·         PROVIDE EMPLOYMENT

FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE: The world has gone beyond practicing subsistence agriculture just for you to feed yourself and your family. Commercial agriculture which you can start on a small scale to grow into a large scale is the real deal. It doesn’t matter whether you are employed or not. You might even eventually consider giving up your job when it starts paying off for you.

Even if you have a very good paying job, the salary is not enough to meet all your needs; provide for your family; and give attention to responsibilities begging for your attention which you can’t shy away from. And there is no job security for everyone (except civil servants). You might one day wake up to the harsh reality that employer would no longer need your service or the company is experiencing crisis and would have to shut down or lay off some staffs (God forbid! you say?) For God to forbid such occurrence you need to plan ahead of time. Have a plan B which could be agriculture that would do well to save you if/when the time comes. OK!. You don’t get laid off. Someway, somehow, you managed to scale through. But you are eventually facing retirement. You have to retire. It’s inevitable. The company is not yours so you can’t bypass retirement. As you are working, invest in agriculture and plan to retire early to concentrate on your business.

For the unemployed, you can start agriculture and become your own boss and even go ahead to be employer of labor with little or no capital (depending on the area of agriculture that interests you). Maybe you were never meant to work under anyone but employ people to work under you. All you need is the know-how. You can explore agriculture by ordering day old chicks for clients; being a broker for commodities; farm consultancy; manage supply chain for farmers.

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“Start farming with one (1) hectare or one (1) acre or even a plot; 1 snail, 1 goat etc; multiply gradually until you start employing the people laughing at you.” A social media user advised another user who lamented about the state of agriculture and how it is treated with kids glove. I cannot but agree totally with the word of advice and I equally advice you do the same. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela. The trick is to start. And the best time to start is now!

Your employment status won’t matter at the end of the day. It’s all about being financially buoyant and able to meet your needs when it arises, not waiting for the end of the month or when your employer decides to pay salaries owed for months.

Supplies of crops are not enough yet and can’t be too much. More farmers are needed to plant and supply people and industries major crops like beans, cotton. sesame, cashew nuts, cassava, cocoa beans, groundnuts, kolanut, maize, melon, rice, millet, palm kernels, palm oil, plantains, rubber etc.

Flour mills needs you to start planting and supplying them grains in exchange for money. You need to start planting and supplying cassava used for baking and making biscuits. You need to start planting and supplying tomatoes to factories that manufacture tomato pastes. You need to start planting and supplying fruits to factories that manufacture juice. You need to start rearing and supplying chickens and their eggs. You need to start planting and supplying maize to factories that manufacture cereal. Big stores needs you to start supplying them your farm produce. Your society needs you to go into fish farming; poultry farming; piggery and livestock as a whole. No matter what you produce or what animal you rear, the society and industries needs it to thrive. No man can do without food. And not all industries can survive without farmers; their survival and profit depends on quantity of farm produce they are able to acquire.

Exportation of your farm produce is another big way to be financially independent. By so doing, you provide for local and international customers.

PERSONAL CONSUMPTION: An adage in pidgin says: Na where person de work, person de chop. As you practice commercial agriculture, you can equally practice subsistence agriculture on the side for you and your family. You can’t be bothered about the price of foodstuffs in the market when you have the plantation that would do well to cater for you and your family while you equally make profit by selling out at the same time.

PROVIDE EMPLOYMENT: You might be able to start and run everything on your own but eventually you won’t be able to manage the business alone as it grows in leaps and bounds, and as such you would need the employment of labor, thereby creating employment. You would do well to start farming so you can make profit and become employer of labor simultaneously.

You can start farming on that inherited land now. You can use that your small space to start farming now. You can rent a land to start farming now. Start no matter how small. Big things start small. Start now! No better time to start benefiting from agriculture than now. Agriculture is for all. We are all naturally agriculturalists in our own right, most of us just haven’t explored it yet.

Let us know what you feel about the article; we are open to questions and contributions

Written by Amokeoja Oluwatomisin 

amokeoja313@gmail.com