My 7 year stay in Guinness Nigeria opened my eyes to best practice strategies I now use to help farm businesses boost their performance. If you wonder what beer production has got to do with farm production, keep reading, and it’ll soon be obvious.
I joined Guinness Nigeria as a Graduate Management Trainee in Brewing, following the ban on wheat importation, in late 1994.
And I was subsequently privileged to partake in an internally driven initiative to conduct on-site trials for viable alternative brewing ingredients.
They wanted to maintain beer quality at international standard and at the same time lower production costs. The problem was that with the ban, they had to achieve that goal using locally available cereals, which were of a lower quality.
They could have waited for some large research body somewhere to come up with an idea for using locally available cereals.
But the company’s decision makers knew they would be better off taking their destiny into their own hands.
And we eventually did get it right.
So much so that when in 2000, I and a senior colleague were sent as delegates to the International Brewing Course organized by the Institute & Guild of Brewing (IGB) in the UK, we were referred to by Tim O’Rourke (the organizer), as “experts in Sorghum brewing” from Guinness Nigeria!
Why? Well, at that time, we (Guinness Nigeria) were the only ones in the world successful in brewing “international quality” beer using Maize and Sorghum exclusively.
You must understand this: Other brewing companies used those same ingredients – but only as a complement (i.e. adjuncts) i.e. in small quantities.
The main ingredient recognised for beer production worldwide was Malted Barley. It was regarded as the best ingredient to get the best results.
Few people imagined that respectable quality beer could be produced without it – at least not by 100% exclusion of it in favour of poorly regarded ingredients like Maize and Sorghum.
Guinness’ success in doing just that led to a major shift in perspective – earning that style of brewing a mention in the formal brewing documentation.
Proof of that fact was made apparent when Tim asked I and my colleague to read through a draft manuscript being written, which had a section on Sorghum Brewing. He wanted us to check that it was consistent with what we did.
The above story shows it is possible to take ownership of how one’s business performance evolves, by choosing to innovate more actively in running it.
That’s what Guinness did.
Now, beer manufacturing is basically a batch production process. And that (i.e. batch production) is what farm businesses do too!.
In the case of farm business, a farmer who develops a new system for getting more eggs or meat from poultry, on a consistent basics, can – for instance – decide to offer a coaching program.
This could be made available to start-ups and those already established. Except it involves use of some proprietary formula, I do not see why this cannot happen.
And even if you do have to keep an aspect secret, you can still offer the service.
A Farm CEO in Nigeria’s Ibadan that I’ve referred to several times in the past, told me how he discovered a way to use up to 40% inclusion of cassava flakes – locally called “gari” – in rations he feeds to his catfish.
According to him, this has led to significant sustained cost savings with no noticeable drops in farm output!
But like I’ve told him, he’s only doing half of what I believe is possible…
The other half is sharing your discovery, having tested and found it to be enduring, with others – be it free or for a fee.
I happen to know other farmers who are searching for solutions like his. Some who reached out to me, I referred to him. But there are certainly many more who would gladly contact him IF they knew he had such solutions to offer
Two years ago, I mentioned speaking – on phone – with a Nigerian professor, who is a World Bank consultant…
He revealed that he earned additional income by “selling” feed based on a ration formula he derived using linear programming.
And he jokingly noted that many buyers of his feed had asked that he give them the formula, and he had naturally declined.
That proves what I’m proposing in this article is possible.
You just need to go about it creatively!
I recommend that every farm CEO who wishes to make MORE money (outside the direct sale of farm produce) adopt the ideas I advocate here.
In other words, work hard to develop improved cost-saving ways of running your farm production processes.
Aim to lower you cost of producing each batch of farm output for instance.
Then take some of your useful discoveries you make and MONETIZE them.
The ones you choose to share for FREE will inadvertently attract positive attention from your target audience.
That would give you an indirect way to promote your ideas, and get name recognition/credibility.
A timeless and cost-effective platform, to implement this strategy would be a website – with an email newsletter system built into it.
What I refer to above, is what I do with my work. Some aspects of my methods/discoveries I offer for free.
Others I make available ONLY for a fee:
A good example is the Poultry Layer Farm Business Plan I dispatched to a client in Nigeria last week. I’ve now re-packaged it in a generic form, for sale to interested buyers, with an option of including the multi worksheet Excel workbook with projection tables, and formulas. Click here to contact me, if you’d like to get a copy.
And that’s just an example of many that I have done – and still intend to do.
I routinely announce my new discoveries/offers via my blog – which republished via RSS syndication to my website, face book twitter feed to visitors, fans and followers.
Plus, I send broadcasts periodically, via my email newsletter –and subscribers.
If you need help making use of the ideas I’ve offered here, to begin generating passive income outside your main farming business, click here to contact me.