If you are a stakeholder in agribusiness, the ideas I offer on Best Practice Farm Business Management may interest you.

[TIP: Click FARM BIZ on the navigation menu/categories at the top of this blog.]

Not only am I passionate about supporting Farm CEOs with my knowledge and expertise, but I am also driven to create both digital (see my flagship products here PLUS in my bookstore) and physical (see my Proposed Farm Business Support Center layout plan here) solutions.

That was why, in 2013, I readily embraced the opportunity to write a case study research paper based on the wrk I had been doing selling my Custom Excel-VB driven RATION FORMULATOR software to Farm CEOs.

Below, I share excerpts from a page in my 4,000 word International Agribusiness Case Study paper, titled  “Adoption of PC-Based Feed Formulation Methods by Farmers, Feed Manufacturers and Extension Professionals, in South West Nigeria.”

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“(Hi Tayo)…My impressions about the (Excel-VB Ration Formulator) software:

1). For having calculated by hand for hours to calibrate protein% in recipes, using your spec sheet is a CHARM! and a BIG time saver.
…

4). Congratulations! for what you have done. I had found [commercial software name]. It looks to be a very powerful software, but $1250US – 196873.87NGN. The customizability of your software makes it more ambivalent to different situations and countries.” – Ron(ald) Vaughan*, Sun, 25 Nov 2012 13:31:11 -0500>

For ration formulation to succeed, derived rations must be cost-effective, and also yield the desired livestock performance.

Customizable Excel-VB solutions, featuring intelligent errorhandling and intuitive “novice-proof” graphic user interfaces can give such superior benefits.

Extension specialists can learn basic Excel-Visual Basic programming, and collaborate with farmers to develop software to achieve the above.

The Excel-VB Driven Ration1 Formulator™ (see Annex 1.0) was developed in 2004 , and regularly updated since then, for farmers with limited budgets, and a need to freely explore locally alternative ingredients.

It is accompanied by a 70 page feed formulation hand book (published in 2002), which explains the improved Pearson Square feed formulation technique on which the application works.

The application has been used mostly for poultry and fish farming feed formulation.

Thirty (30) livestock farmers (private owners), including some from outside Nigeria, have so far bought it.

One buyer, who has been especially forthcoming with useful feedback and suggestions, is Ronald Vaughan .

Another version, which does elaborate amino acid balancing (suited to pig farmers’ needs), in addition to Least Cost Formulation, is currently being tested.

“Last week, we got together to determin(e) what were the seeds we would need to get for this summer. It was a question of minutes. All we had to do was look up the chart of consumation versus storafe. This was the result of all last summer’s work. Attached is the excel sheet we build so as to keep track of the amount of gran we use per year according to different feed recipes…My point is: we were able to get so far thanks to your app. It came in so handy.” – Ronald Vaughan*, Wed, January 23, 2013 10:33 p.m

*Ronald Vaughan is a project manager in a large farm settlement owned by an organization with branches in many parts of the world (not yet in Nigeria). He’d purchased the Excel-VB Ration Formulator featured in this study, back in December 2012, and put it to extensive use – giving feedback on prpgress made. Many Nigerian farm owners also gave similar feedback (mostly on phone), but Ronald’s detailed narratives provide useful insights we felt should be shared.

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Read the true story about how I got engaged by a European Union funded NGO to write the above featured Case Study paper at http://tinyurl.com/AgribizPDF

Text your Full Name, Job Title, Country, WhatsApp Number and Email Addresss to +234-803-302-1263 to request a FREE PDF copy of this paper. Click here to send me a message using a web contact form.