This week, the question I’m treating from my Farm business website contact form database was sent in by “Sola Enitan” from Ikeja Central Business District in Lagos, Nigeria.
In the course of answering that question below, I share insights gained from my interesting phone conversation with a university professor who is a world bank fish farming consultant.
Here’s the question:
“Fish and Shrimp Farming: I need business plan and feasibility studies. Do you own a fish farm yourself, or are you a textbook counsellor?”
Sola’s question is a valid one, and certainly deserves an answer.
I actually called and conversed with him right after reading his email back then.
In the rest of this post, I provide information to answer that question comprehensively.
A Quick Overview Of The Unconventional But Valuable Service I Offer Farmers
As an extension professional, I support farmers to adopt and/or develop best practice systems to make their farms succeed.
In simple english I help them find better ways to get the results they want.
Most of what an extension person does involves moving around/making contacts to discover what’s new (e.g research finding, new hybrids etc), what’s working (from successful farms) and what’s not.
Then such learnings are channelled to relevant farmers who may find them useful.
Sometimes, especially in today’s world, the extension professional may take it upon herself to develop and implement solutions she identifies to be badly needed by farmers.
That’s the approach I have adopted in playing my role as a non-conventional extension service provider, by developing custom software, publishing a feed formulation handbook, helping to setup a Best Operating Farm Process Management System (BOPMS) and also offering capacity building coaching and training.
To play her role effectively, an extension service provider must have a good grasp of both theoretical and practical farming concepts and operations.
The foregoing, combined with a firm understanding of the dynamics of the environment in which the farm operates, will equip her to deliver useful solutions that will be valued by the farm business owner.
Get further details about my unconventional approach to extension service provision on my Farm Business support service website.
(NB: By way of interest, the above link will take you to the old, html version of the site which I’ve used since 2006.
I’m currently in the process of moving ALL the content from the above mentioned old site, into a new database driven WordPress version (featuring my latest articles and updates) here..
Going by the visits and responses I’ve been getting, there must be something I’m doing right.
I have gotten enquiries and had purchases from farm owners and enthusiasts from across Nigeria, many parts of Africa, and as far as Asia, North America and even Australia.
Most of these visitors and buyers found me through online search results facilitated by my elaborate web marketing system, which incorporates web content, in addition to video and audio.
Examples Of How I Operate – From Two Phone Conversations
What I just did above, was to provide a little insight into how I serve farm businesses.
I will now provide real life examples of how I operate, by sharing details of two phone conversations I recently had, through which many farm business owners (and those aspiring) can gain valuable knowledge and insight for use in their farm businesses.
Whenever that happens (as it so often does), I would have succeeded in providing extension education that such persons can put to profitable use.
Conversation 1: Root Cause Analysis Reveals “Poor Management” As Major Cause of Farm Failure
Ironically it was Sola Enitan, the “textbook counsellor question asker” that I had this conversation with!
This happened earlier today. We were speaking for only the second time since we first made contact years ago.
But no one would have been able to tell, from the way we carried on exchanging friendly jokes all through.
That’s one of the things I love about the work I do, and the way I do it 
My purpose for calling Sola, was to find out if he was still involved in fish farming (so I could tell him about my year end sales promo for the Ration Formulator – see bottom of this post).
He replied that he was no longer pursuing that line of interest.
But it was the reason he gave for not going ahead to start his own fish farming business as he’d planned, that provides what I consider a perfect platform on which to further answer HIS “textbook counsellor” query.
Sola explained that he contacted a sample of fish farm business owners at the time, numbering over 100.
According to him, over 70% of them were either no longer in the business, or were in the process of shutting down their operations, or at least contemplating it.
To him, that was a sign that the fish farming business was not a viable one to venture into.
In line with my “Best Practice” Root Cause Analysis instincts, I asked Sola what he thought were the main causes of the farm failures experienced by the farmers he visited.
He replied that the major problem he saw they had, was lack of good quality feed preparation processes, to ensure balanced and non-toxic feed was given to the fish.
In addition, he noted that many of the farmers seemed to have divided interests due to other businesses they were engaged in.
This limited their ability to make timely input and intervention in the daily running of their farm operations. I refer to the foregoing as the “absentee ownership” phenomenon.
At this point, I asked him if he noticed that the reasons he had identified as being responsible for the farm failures were ALL related to farm management practices employed by the owners.
He readily agreed.
I then pointed out that it would be wrong to conclude that commercial fish farming was not viable based on the failures of poorly managed farms.
To this he again agreed.
And that was when he owned up that being a real estate professional, he had actually been looking to invest in fish farming to generate a decent additional stream of income.
So he reviewed the projected set up cost for a typical high capacity commercial intensive catfish production unit, against the projected medium and long term profit margins to be made.
But the numbers were way below his expectations.
Coming from the high margin real estate market, he felt the ROI was too “lean” to justify the money, effort and resources required to run a fish farm profitably.
I could not resist teasing him about his “big money” mentality at this point.
To his credit he replied frankly saying “Look Tayo, that fish business is better for retirement. Right now I need better returns on my money. Maybe later I’ll venture into it!”
TIP: I’ve shared the above to serve as a warning, to those who may be tempted to launch fish farm businesses without doing necessary due diligence.
It’s been called a gold mine, but mining the gold takes work and time. And you must be prepared to put in the work!
Also, don’t let anyone mislead you with exaggerated claims about profits to be made.
At the risk of stating the obvious, commercial fish farming cannot yield anything close to the same profits margins as you’d reasonably expect from investing in the oil and gas or real estate businesses!
Conversation 2: World Bank Consultant Draws Attention To A Potentially Profitable, But Little Explored Feed Formulation Support Service For Farm Businesses
A day before I spoke with Seun, I had a long and interesting phone conversation, with a university professor specialising in fish nuitrition and feed formulation.
Prof. F (let’s keep his real name quiet for now) told me that while consulting for the world bank, he had developed a high performing feed formula for fish, using the Linear Programming(LP) technique.
LP is an alternative to the simpler diagramatic Pearson Square computation technique described in my feed formulation handbook, and which my Ration Formulator software is based on.
The professor explained that he now devotes his time to using his formula to produce high performing feed that farmers come to buy from him.
According to him, it’s been quite rewarding working that way. His “magic” formula is therefore kept close to his chest, despite appeals from farmers that he let them have it.
That was quite a useful bit of information for me, as it implies opportunities exist for interested persons to provide a valuable service to busy but serious farmers:
TIP: You can offer feed formulation support services, possibly combined with actual feed compounding.
Some people run feed mills and help buyers produce bagged feeds based on the customer’s supplied formula (like Yakubu Ibrahim, a recent buyer of my feed formulation software, who owns runs a feed mill in Kano).
They also produce and sell their own brands of feed for different classes of livestock, using formulas they derive by themselves.
To do the above, some use manual calculation methods based on their understanding of feed formulation techniques like that described in my popular 70 page handbook.
At some point, a few (like Yakubu) decide they want the convenience of an automated method for deriving the formulas for use by themselves and their clients.
That’s when they come online and discover solutions like my customizable Excel-VB driven Ration Formulator.
See the sales promo details at the end of this post, to discover how my handbook and software can help you carry out feed formulation for different animal types using any combination of ingredients you prefer, within seconds, at the click of a button.
Final Words: Get Competent Help To Manage Your Farm Successfully
If you run a farm business, or plan to, you likely need support with setting up your farm management operations to ensure your long term success.
Get someone with the training, expertise and exposure to help you.
You may find my Farm BOPMS development service potentially useful.
BOPMS is an acronym for a practical farm management solution I developed years ago, called “Best Operating Process Management System”.
I offer to put it in place for farm businesses, or to provide information and education on it, via learning events e.g talks, seminars and workshops.
Having a BOPMS in place for your farm can drastically minimise occurrences of unexpected crises, while ensuring more profitable and stress free running of your farm opertions on a day to day basis.
You can read more about how setting up a custom BOPMS™ for your farm can make your life as a farm business owner more productive at the page below, on my Farm Business Support Service website:
http://iff.spontaneousdevelopment.com/farm_perf_5Tools.html.
End Of Year Promo Offer
This offer will remain open until MDT of 15th January 2013.
I offer you (or others you know) my Automated MS Excel Feed Formulation software, bundled with my popular feed formulation handbook at a promotional discount. See details below:
1. Watch my video demostration for the software on my Youtube channel (click)
2. DETAILED PDF USER GUIDE FOR THE Software can be downloaded from here
3. The sofware price is N10k.
But in the Xmas spirit, if you buy on or before the deadline, I’ll send you my fully printable 70 page Feed formulation handbook PDF for N4k instead of N8k (see it on sale for $82 approx. at the online store.)
So, instead of paying N18k, you get to pay N14k to buy both the software and handbook – saving N4,000.
4. Get more details about my feed formulation handbook and software here.
You can call me on 234-803-302-1263.