Preview: This write-up was first published – on April 21, 2012 – as a NOTE on my Facebook profile at https://www.facebook.com/notes/tayo-solagbade/i-have-no-farm-yet-but-farm-biz-owners-badly-need-my-help-heres-why/369364946438303. I’ve now moved it here, on my SD Nuggets blog, but it also auto-publishes via RSS Feed to my Cost-Saving Best Practice Farm Business Ideas website.
Any smart Farm Biz owner who does NOT allow misguided zealots to lead him/her ASTRAY, WILL discover from studying my offerings, that I can actually help Farm Business become more efficient and ultimately MORE productive.
I have remained VERY amused by the attempts being made by certain individuals to INTERPRETE the fact that I do not own a Farm Business of my own, to mean that I cannot possibly offer useful value to those who do.
I believe the RIGHT question to ask is this: What exactly am I offering Farm Biz owners?
My Answer: Today, virtually anyone can be taught to inject, spawn, and rear fish for instance. I DO NOT offer to teach anyone to do that. Neither do I offer pond construction services. Instead I offer SOLUTIONS that farm business owners NEED to setup their farm businesses for long term success.
These solutions ultimately determine how long the business lasts, and how profitable it will be. In effect I offer a unique kind of Extension Service. Get details of my approach on the website.
Going by the above, it is my opinion, that a MORE relevant question would be: Do I have verifiable competence in the provision of Agricultural Extension Services?
I ask you to consider: Have I not demonstrated through my insightful analysis of what MANY farm business owners are doing, that I have a BETTER grasp of the practical requirements for making a success of the farm business?
As I explained on my Farm Business Support Service website, I have apprenticed on farms here in Lagos, and also deliberately purchased manuals, videos, and also attended training events organised by certain well known practitioners here in Lagos. That is in addition to visiting farm businesses to see how they operate Details abound on my farm business ideas website.
SIMPLY PUT: I am a trained and experienced manager of production processes, with graduate level professional training in Agricultural Extension Services provision.
I DO NOT need to own a farm, to help ANY FARM BUSINESS OWNER. There are things I know, that most farm business owners do NOT. When I get to their farms, I SEE things they see, and gain insights they NEVER do, except I tell them. This is FACT.
Now, isn’t it odd that when I engage MANY farm business owners on the practical aspects of running their operations in line with best practice principles, they often fail to meet up?
Does the fact that I have been able to come up with workable ideas, concepts, strategies and TOOLS (e.g. my popular Feed Formulation Handbook, and Software), to achieve BETTER farm business performance NOT indicate that I know something that MANY farm business owners do NOT?
Answers can be found by visiting my cost-saving farm ideas website – I’ve said enough there to address the above concerns and more.
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THANK GOD: At least ONE person who has contacted me AFTER visiting my website seems to have been patient enough to do the thinking needed to appreciate what I offer: See the reproduced comments sent to me by Chairman/Multi-Tech Ventures Nig Ltd – Olumuyiwa, F.A. – at the bottom of this page.
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Today, In Nigeria/Africa, Almost ANYONE Can Own A Farm Business
Let’s stop and think about this for a moment.
Is it not a well known fact TODAY, that ANYONE, regardless of academic or professional background, can easily learn the basics of injecting, hatching, and rearing catfish or raising poultry?
Countless learning resources abound e.g. VCDs, seminars and workshops of all kinds.
Virtually anyone can learn most of the hands on technical stuff today. It’s been simplified. Just like learning to use most aspects of mobile and PC technology today is no longer a big deal.
The REAL CHALLENGE is knowing how to achieve the required level of productivity and efficiency that will enable you make a long term profitable success of your farm business venture.
It is this challenge that continues to make so many farm businesses either struggle or collapse! They do NOT have the required grasp of how to manage the batch production processes which their farm businesses are based on.
The so called experts simply teach them the technical stuff. But the more subtle skills of process and production management are neglected. Most farm business owners lack the know-how to organise their production operations. They do not know the most efficient manner to ensure optimal use of manpower and raw materials as well as physical resources like vats, ponds, water and feed.
The crash courses they attend (not surprisingly) do not show them how to use worksheets to plan for stocking and emptying of multiple ponds. As a result they fail to appreciate the need to MEASURE turn around times, so as to achieve maximum possible cycles of fish production. They also are not aware of the need to compute Key Performance Indices to enable them turn out CONSISTENT volume and quality of fish flesh. Same logic applies to poultry farming.
I don’t care where you learn from. Or how much money you throw at your farm business. If you do not have a well thought out system for managing your farm business, you are very likely to struggle.
Look around here in Lagos, and you will see so many farm businesses operating with manpower that do not have a standard operating procedure. Today, they take fish from this pond and sell. Tomorrow they take from the same pond for breeding. When they breed the fish, the process is often trial and error. Caring for fingerlings is a process fraught with avoidable setbacks e.g. infection, and mortalities.
On the sales front, as I have said elsewhere in a seperate article, little thought goes into preparing for removal of market ready stocks so as to create space for new fingerlings.
Are we to believe that a haphazard approach is inevitable in farm business management? How many farm business owners can provide easily retrievable and RELIABLE/ACCURATE data of production, waste, expenses and sales for daily, weekly or monthly intervals?
I can supply those kinds of details, and analysis done based on them, for ALL the business and personal activities I have been engaged in since 2002. I document them and regularly analyze them. That’s why I am able to decide when what a client wishes to pay to have me provide a service is too low. While apprenticing on a catfish and ornamental fish farm at Abesan Estate in Ipaja, I did the same thing.
Running a batch production process (which all farm businesses entail) is routine and repititive.
Once you know what needs to be done, and the right way to do it, it stops being a BIG deal. Nigerian Farm Business Owners need to stop wasting time focussing on who can inject a fish. Even illiterates are being taught to do that at today’s workshops!
Instead, LOOK for experts who can help you develop sustainable systems for operating your farms PRODUCTIVELY for REAL profit.
The bank official who makes recommendations about whether his/her bank should give you a loan, or EXTEND you existing credit line, quite often will NOT have any farm business of his/her own. But if the bank is a good one, the individual they assign go do that job is likely to have a background on Agricultural Economics/Extension Services.
Just as it with other professional fields, the training provided that individual is what s/he will draw upon, combined with any experience gained post-graduation, to assess your business – or make recommendations on areas you need to improve upon.
My training as an Agricultural Extension Services professional, and my exposure to world class process management systems in a large multinational corporation (See my PDF resume), have enabled me add value to Farm Businesses I have come in contact with.
My advice to ANYONE who owns a farm business, is to NEVER fall prey to the delusion that OWNING a farm business makes you SMARTER about running it, than someone like me. The FACT is there are likely to be MANY things I know, that YOU will need to LEARN.
I’m not saying I know more than everyone else.
But going by what I have seen many business owners do out here (both farm and non-farm related), I am 95% certain that MANY of them need help with the stuff I have written about in this piece.
The smart ones will know better than to climb on their high horses, when it comes to exploring the offers I’m making. Waiting till when my Integrated Fish Farm starts up will be VERY unwise – because by then, I am likely to be VERY unaffordable for most farm business owners.
This article has been written as a wake up call to any farm business owners trying to make up their minds about where to go for help.
Once again, I challenge you to THINK: With all the stuff the so called experts have taught you, do you honestly believe your farm business is running as efficiently, productively and profitably as it should/can?
You may be making money. But how much are you making compared to how much you are spending in terms of effort, time, labour/manpower, feed, maintenance of farm structures, sales, marketing, power supply, diesel, petrol etc? Can you spend LESS? Can you get MORE done in less time and at less cost?
I say YOU CAN. I challenge you to invite me to your farm for 30 minutes, and I will ask you questions that PROVE that this is so. The choice is yours.
I Am NOT Interested In Competing With Anyone – But I Want To Help Farm Biz Owners Operate More Productively!
It’s time to stop fooling ourselves. Physical movement does not equate to progress. A lot of people spend years spinning their wheels – remaining in the same place. Your farm business CAN become a MODEL for others to learn from.
All I see around are people preoccupied with doing the same things that others are doing, even when they are not getting IMPROVED results.
Read the articles on my farm business ideas website (and my Farm Business Ideas Guest Posts published on other website) to appreciate the point I’m making.
Like I said, INVITE me to your farm, for 30 minutes and I’ll prove that I’m right.
PLEASE NOTE: I will come with a video camera man to record the event. I’m sure every sincere person will be OK with that. After all, I’m the one who’s going to have to PROVE that I’m not a QUACK!
Now, let me acknowledge at least ONE individual who, it appears, took enough time to evaluate all that I said on my Farm Biz IDEAS mini-site, to arrive at a reasonably accurate understanding of what I offer.
Read the message he sent to me via my website contact form – below. What he said, is in effect, what I offer to do for interested persons. It of course goes without saying, that I DO GENUINELY DO all that is stated on my Best Operating Farm Process Management website !
May 2009:
“I need a program for a new investor interested in small scale catfish farming for a start, expandable in future however. Or alternatively a link to who can assist in construction of a good catfish pond along the interest indicated above. I can’t see you rendering this service in your website that I went through, as it look like you provide other vital support services which we will need on take off. Am I right? Give me a feedback soonest. I wish to end this note by honestly commending your effort if you genuinely do all you have highlighted on your website. Thanks” – Chairman/Multi-Tech Ventures Nig Ltd – olumuyiwa, F.A.” (Ifo, Ogun State)****
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NB: It is instructive to note that anyone who submits the contact from on the farm business support service website gets an autoresponder with instructions on the next steps to take if s/he wishes to have me send a response. I took this measure after discovering many mischievious persons sending in phony request, and wasting my time (Some wanted items I offered for a fee, for FREE etc).
Why I STOPPED Updating www.iff.spontaneousdevelopment.com
There’s ONE MORE THING I need to mention: Some people may have noticed that I stopped publishing most of the new content I have planned for my Cost-Saving Farm Business Ideas mini site.
This was because I could NOT find a way to automate requests for paid access to the new stuff, without giving out my bank account details.
Another reason, was that I also discovered that some people had been visiting my site with a view to taking my stuff (including getting my publications at special offers) and plagiarising it. These are the same kind of people who run seminars on funny zero managed farms, selling printed versions of PDF materials downloaded from websites run by Agriculutural Extension Services departments of Universities based in the USA.
I do NOT exaggerate. Let me tell you a true story, to illustrate:
On one occasion few years ago, I visited the farm office of a well known Catfish Farm Workshop specialist. During our conversation, his assistant presented me with spiral bound copies of certain reports, on Super Intensive Catfish Farming operations – and told me they were for sale.
Unfortunately for him, I recognised the documents as being printouts of PDFs from a USA university (North Carolina, I think) website I had also visited (even though the cover suggested that his boss had published them!).
So I told him I could give him ALL the PDF versions of the reports if he wanted. You can imagine how the rest of that conversation went! There IS a lot of that going on out here, I must say. People LOVE shortcuts – and that applies to both the SELLER, and those who choose to be their students.
A lot of the new stuff I intend to publish on my website is relatively new. ButI have tested them out here, and know they work.
Here are some examples.
a. Low cost Earthworm farming as a means of feeding fish and other livestock higher protein levels to achieve better growth rates, at LOWER costs.
b. Daphia rearing for fingerling feeding at MUCH LOWER costs.
c. Rabbit rearing integrated with poultry and fish farming – I have reared and bred rabbits for sale, and KNOW they are perfect for this. My extensive research has also led me to discover a community in Africa that received international funding to DO exactly this kind of self-sustaining Integrated Livestock farming.
When I finish setting up automated monetization systems on my website, I WILL resume putting up the new stuff. But this time, some of it will be premium content that needs to be paid for.
Click http://spontaneousdevelopment.com/premium/special_report.htm to see an example of my NEW paid subscription system that will be in use across my website
FINAL WORDS: As a Farm Business Owner, you MUST think like an entrepreneur.
Doing things DIFFERENTLY if it will help you make MORE profits, is something you should NEVER be afraid of. Don’t waste time seeking approval from arm chair theorists, who ONLY know how to criticise those who are DOING something with themselves.
Those who belong to the “critics” group, and who ALWAYS exist in LARGER numbers, do NOT like me for being able to offer what works.
They KNOW I will open the eyes of MANY people, and make them smarter and MORE independent.
Should you let them deny YOU of the benefits I can bring to your farm business operations?
The choice is yours!