Where do you intend to get the acres and at what rate? Looking for cheap land to buy for farming. Thanks

confluence:
Kudos to you, it is not an easy task, farming is capital intensive, I embark on a similar journey too as a new farmer, all what you wrote there is true,just like someone advice you to minimize human interaction in the farming setup,I paid for 15 acres of land around iseyin, looking at cash at hand, I was able to plough, 7 acres currently with late season maize and cassava,my long term goal is to plant cashew on the land as I intend to acquire 20 acres each year for the next 5 years, got the land late too around July this year so I did not want the remaining farming season to be a waste of time, so I planted the maize and cassava, God really favor me with rain because I planted very late around 13th of august

Around Iseyin ,getting land is a bit difficult, because, spend about 3 months inspecting various land as I have reasons for choosing the type of land, I wanted land that have no trees, which is more expensive, then distance from the town and distance from tarred road, all is what is put into consideration when I bought mine at the rate of #70k/acre, each, some are sold for 50k, some even 40k, but very far from the town, and some there are no nearby farming community, all this is what I consider before purchasing

Plow:
Where do you intend to get the acres and at what rate? Looking for cheap land to buy for farming. Thanks

okoroemeka:
its all about good agricultural practice but I do rather manage 1 acre of hybrid fresh pepper with yields of 20_30 bags of pepper every 4 days for around 4 months and that is not subsistence farming.

Which hybrid yields that much?

okoroemeka:
its all about good agricultural practice but I do rather manage 1 acre of hybrid fresh pepper with yields of 20_30 bags of pepper every 4 days for around 4 months and that is not subsistence farming.

I agree with you that is not subsistence. It is worth trying in future.

How do you market this product and how easy has it been?

baobab1:

I agree with you that is not subsistence. It is worth trying in future.

How do you market this product and how easy has it been?

brother, your thread is stalling, please update for the sake those following. like me

Tollgoon Nigeria Enterprises
email- tollgoon2812@yahoo.com
PLANTAIN PRODUCER
Iwo road Ibadan Oyo state
07055916691
....................
Kindly help me with a business plan sample or template on plantain production...
thanks in anticipation...

Friends I have been very busy at work and in the farm hence my inability to update the thread for some days. K

Last week and up till now we were battling with weeds as a result of controllable error we made at the beginning.

My first farm hand Mr. L did me a lot of injustice, coupled with the fact that the farm manager did not do a thorough job.

Mr. L was introduced to me because he helped our association to plant Kenaf last year. He came in to my farm to help us plant our products, castor, cowpea and kenaf. He was brought in because of his expertise in planting kenaf.

We commenced planting with cowpea. One hectare of cowpea contains 126000 stands if precision planting is engaged with one seed per hole. I communicated my expectation to Mr. L and he promised to give me result. I asked him to plant one seed per hole at specified spacing. He started planting with 3 other guys and I left them in the farm, going to my office. On my way I thought within myself how can this guys achieve result with the high plant population unlike castor that contains like 18000 plant population per hecyare. I was skeptical but we had to forge on as I couldn't see an alternative at that moment and we were bent on planting.

The following day before going to work I went to the farm again. This time the farm manager was around. I asked my guys, how many seeds do you plant per hole and hope you adhered strictly to my instruction? Mr. L and his team confirmed my fears, they had been planting 2 to 4 seeds per hole. The guy even asked my farm manager that right from generations past seeds have been planted in multiples to guarantee germination. My farm Manger confirmed his words but told him to follow intrusions as given by the owner of the farm. The guy said if they plant 1 seed per hole the entire farm will be full of cowpea.i told them not to worry that if my intrusions were followed strictly I know the expected outcome and told them that maximum seed per hole where mistakes happen should not be more than 2 seeds.
Friends, when plants sprouted, the cowpea farm was not what I planned for. There were places where we had 8 seeds, some 10seeds just because they needed the seeds to finish as soon as possible. I did not study psychology but I know a little about how the mind of man works. I challenged Mr. L he pleaded but said it should be errors from his colleagues. Thus we lost plant population. The second cowpea farm was better in terms of seeds per hole but they missed it badly in terms of spacing. 20kg seeds that was supposed to be planted on 1hectare was planted on almost 2 hectares.
The cost of planting was also very high. I thank God we didn't plant Kenaf because if they couldn't plant beans successfully how would they have planted Kenaf that is supposed to be 200,000 stands per hectare. It would have been a great mess.
Mr. L opted to help spray my preemergence herbicide to help in weed control. He charged N3000 per hectare which I agreed to pay. I told my farm manager to stay with the guys, ensure they mix chemicals in his presence in a drum before he leaves them to work. I left the farm shortly after because they intended to spray in the afternoon after planting. Guys, you wouldn't beleive that my farm manager left the farm less than 30mins aft er me. What happened to my chemicals I do not know but we are spending money all over again because weeds kept growing almost at the same rate with the crops.
At the hindsight now, there are various planting machines I could have used to achieve effective plant population and at least 85% efficiency and more than 70% reduction in labour cost. Now I realized that i should have asked the existing farmers in the village the preemergence herbicide that is effective for weed control in such community and I should have personally supervised when chemicals were mixed. I should also have asked how land preparation is done in the community.
Most of the mistakes above are learning points and I don't see them happening again in my future endeavours.

Sorry about the mess, next time when it comes to spraying of farm, no matter how busy I am I supervised it so as to avoid stories that touch the heart, because I have learnt lessons from a senior colleague who experience the mess

baobab1:
Friends I have been very busy at work and in the farm hence my inability to update the thread for some days. K

Last week and up till now we were battling with weeds as a result of controllable error we made at the beginning.

My first farm hand Mr. L did me a lot of injustice, coupled with the fact that the farm manager did not do a thorough job.

Mr. L was introduced to me because he helped our association to plant Kenaf last year. He came in to my farm to help us plant our products, castor, cowpea and kenaf. He was brought in because of his expertise in planting kenaf.

We commenced planting with cowpea. One hectare of cowpea contains 126000 stands if precision planting is engaged with one seed per hole. I communicated my expectation to Mr. L and he promised to give me result. I asked him to plant one seed per hole at specified spacing. He started planting with 3 other guys and I left them in the farm, going to my office. On my way I thought within myself how can this guys achieve result with the high plant population unlike castor that contains like 18000 plant population per hecyare. I was skeptical but we had to forge on as I couldn't see an alternative at that moment and we were bent on planting.

The following day before going to work I went to the farm again. This time the farm manager was around. I asked my guys, how many seeds do you plant per hole and hope you adhered strictly to my instruction? Mr. L and his team confirmed my fears, they had been planting 2 to 4 seeds per hole. The guy even asked my farm manager that right from generations past seeds have been planted in multiples to guarantee germination. My farm Manger confirmed his words but told him to follow intrusions as given by the owner of the farm. The guy said if they plant 1 seed per hole the entire farm will be full of cowpea.i told them not to worry that if my intrusions were followed strictly I know the expected outcome and told them that maximum seed per hole where mistakes happen should not be more than 2 seeds.
Friends, when plants sprouted, the cowpea farm was not what I planned for. There were places where we had 8 seeds, some 10seeds just because they needed the seeds to finish as soon as possible. I did not study psychology but I know a little about how the mind of man works. I challenged Mr. L he pleaded but said it should be errors from his colleagues. Thus we lost plant population. The second cowpea farm was better in terms of seeds per hole but they missed it badly in terms of spacing. 20kg seeds that was supposed to be planted on 1hectare was planted on almost 2 hectares.
The cost of planting was also very high. I thank God we didn't plant Kenaf because if they couldn't plant beans successfully how would they have planted Kenaf that is supposed to be 200,000 stands per hectare. It would have been a great mess.
Mr. L opted to help spray my preemergence herbicide to help in weed control. He charged N3000 per hectare which I agreed to pay. I told my farm manager to stay with the guys, ensure they mix chemicals in his presence in a drum before he leaves them to work. I left the farm shortly after because they intended to spray in the afternoon after planting. Guys, you wouldn't beleive that my farm manager left the farm less than 30mins aft er me. What happened to my chemicals I do not know but we are spending money all over again because weeds kept growing almost at the same rate with the crops.
At the hindsight now, there are various planting machines I could have used to achieve effective plant population and at least 85% efficiency and more than 70% reduction in labour cost. Now I realized that i should have asked the existing farmers in the village the preemergence herbicide that is effective for weed control in such community and I should have personally supervised when chemicals were mixed. I should also have asked how land preparation is done in the community.
Most of the mistakes above are learning points and I don't see them happening again in my future endeavours.

confluence:
Sorry about the mess, next time when it comes to spraying of farm, no matter how busy I am I supervised it so as to avoid stories that touch the heart, because I have learnt lessons from a senior colleague who experience the mess

Bro, I learnt in a very hard way

EMMAACHILE:

Which hybrid yields that much?

east west habanero pepper or technjsem avenir f1.20 bags for acre(6 plots) is not fantastic, we have harvested 7 bags from 750 stands of avenir hot pepper,

baobab1:
Friends I have been very busy at work and in the farm hence my inability to update the thread for some days. K

Last week and up till now we were battling with weeds as a result of controllable error we made at the beginning.

My first farm hand Mr. L did me a lot of injustice, coupled with the fact that the farm manager did not do a thorough job.

Mr. L was introduced to me because he helped our association to plant Kenaf last year. He came in to my farm to help us plant our products, castor, cowpea and kenaf. He was brought in because of his expertise in planting kenaf.

We commenced planting with cowpea. One hectare of cowpea contains 126000 stands if precision planting is engaged with one seed per hole. I communicated my expectation to Mr. L and he promised to give me result. I asked him to plant one seed per hole at specified spacing. He started planting with 3 other guys and I left them in the farm, going to my office. On my way I thought within myself how can this guys achieve result with the high plant population unlike castor that contains like 18000 plant population per hecyare. I was skeptical but we had to forge on as I couldn't see an alternative at that moment and we were bent on planting.

The following day before going to work I went to the farm again. This time the farm manager was around. I asked my guys, how many seeds do you plant per hole and hope you adhered strictly to my instruction? Mr. L and his team confirmed my fears, they had been planting 2 to 4 seeds per hole. The guy even asked my farm manager that right from generations past seeds have been planted in multiples to guarantee germination. My farm Manger confirmed his words but told him to follow intrusions as given by the owner of the farm. The guy said if they plant 1 seed per hole the entire farm will be full of cowpea.i told them not to worry that if my intrusions were followed strictly I know the expected outcome and told them that maximum seed per hole where mistakes happen should not be more than 2 seeds.
Friends, when plants sprouted, the cowpea farm was not what I planned for. There were places where we had 8 seeds, some 10seeds just because they needed the seeds to finish as soon as possible. I did not study psychology but I know a little about how the mind of man works. I challenged Mr. L he pleaded but said it should be errors from his colleagues. Thus we lost plant population. The second cowpea farm was better in terms of seeds per hole but they missed it badly in terms of spacing. 20kg seeds that was supposed to be planted on 1hectare was planted on almost 2 hectares.
The cost of planting was also very high. I thank God we didn't plant Kenaf because if they couldn't plant beans successfully how would they have planted Kenaf that is supposed to be 200,000 stands per hectare. It would have been a great mess.
Mr. L opted to help spray my preemergence herbicide to help in weed control. He charged N3000 per hectare which I agreed to pay. I told my farm manager to stay with the guys, ensure they mix chemicals in his presence in a drum before he leaves them to work. I left the farm shortly after because they intended to spray in the afternoon after planting. Guys, you wouldn't beleive that my farm manager left the farm less than 30mins aft er me. What happened to my chemicals I do not know but we are spending money all over again because weeds kept growing almost at the same rate with the crops.
At the hindsight now, there are various planting machines I could have used to achieve effective plant population and at least 85% efficiency and more than 70% reduction in labour cost. Now I realized that i should have asked the existing farmers in the village the preemergence herbicide that is effective for weed control in such community and I should have personally supervised when chemicals were mixed. I should also have asked how land preparation is done in the community.
Most of the mistakes above are learning points and I don't see them happening again in my future endeavours.

sorry oo!seems u are learning the hard way,man is the weakest link in any farm,but can't u transplant the side they planted more cowpeas to place with less density.

okoroemeka:
sorry oo!seems u are learning the hard way,man is the weakest link in any farm,but can't u transplant the side they planted more cowpeas to place with less density.

He is really learning the hard way. For that size of land and planting, a seed planter would have been best.

okoroemeka:
east west habanero pepper or technjsem avenir f1.20 bags for acre(6 plots) is not fantastic, we have harvested 7 bags from 750 stands of avenir hot pepper,

The 20 bags every 4 bags is impressive. Last 2 weeks price in Kogi for the ordinary habanero was around N6,000 but was unavailable this week. The small popular dustbin-like basket was sold around N1200 today.

I would pick east west products over technisem as I seem not to be lucky with my former technisem crops of sweet pepper and cucumber. The seeds refuse germinating after been exposed to air and sealed back and stored for like 4 months. Not sure whether that's how sealed products work or peculiar to technisem

Wow! Nice thread

Nice thread, following. farming is very profitable, but capital intensive. it is far beyond what we read online, farming is practical experience. You have really learnt the hard way, and that's because you started too big. its not like you can't start with hectares as a first timer, but its advisable you must have been an intern, or had a friend you visit his farm and learn the practices, or have a God fearing manager (the later is very difficult to get). don't give up, because every farmer has a tale to tell about their first time (mine is similar, started with hectares as well, but i was lucky to have a partner that is less busy and good farm neighbours, they tell us what to do, and when to do it, and we try to push most work like spraying till weekend so as to monitor the labourers). Next season will be cheaper and better, since you must have learnt a lot by now.

okoroemeka:
sorry oo!seems u are learning the hard way,man is the weakest link in any farm,but can't u transplant the side they planted more cowpeas to place with less density.

No he can't. cowpeas can't be transplanted.

confluence:
Kudos to you, it is not an easy task, farming is capital intensive, I embark on a similar journey too as a new farmer, all what you wrote there is true,just like someone advice you to minimize human interaction in the farming setup,I paid for 15 acres of land around iseyin, looking at cash at hand, I was able to plough, 7 acres currently with late season maize and cassava,my long term goal is to plant cashew on the land as I intend to acquire 20 acres each year for the next 5 years, got the land late too around July this year so I did not want the remaining farming season to be a waste of time, so I planted the maize and cassava, God really favor me with rain because I planted very late around 13th of august

Truly God really favored you. the rain this year is a blessing, if it were to be last year, you would have lost all your crops, it stopped raining early, & every where became too dry.

I got a new person in the village to assist me monitor operations in the farm. The man presented himself as a trustworthy fellow but today I realized he too needs to be supervised.

Our battle with weed is still ongoing. We have nearly completed weeding our cowpea farm. While the castor farm weeding is pending. The new manager who happened to be my landlord or better still agent that introduced me to the land owner, began to help me in disbursement of funds to workers.

We commenced by paying N800/half a plot of land. On Tuesday the man Called me that the workers suddenly increased their wages from 800 to 1000 claiming that the weeds were high, I was angry but what else would I do. After all I cannot weed the farm alone and time is far spend for us to look out for another set of people. I then asked the workers to continue that I would sort them out.
My manager said he had measured the ramaining part of the beans and came up with 8 portions. I sent him money to pay when the guys conclude. Lo and behold when I got to the farm today, some portion of the beans farm was not cleared and my manager pretended that he was not aware that the guys have done 8 portions though.

He brought some people to clear our castor farm at 800 naira per portion (a portion is 60*60) . I opted for charging the entire castor farm about 2 hectares for 32000.

I will give more update shortly.

ThisIsBaobab

Yes Ma, it's God's favour

Lullabye:


Truly God really favored you. the rain this year is a blessing, if it were to be last year, you would have lost all your crops, it stopped raining early, & every where became too dry.

Can you believe that we are still battling with weeds? My experience with weeds shows why you must do everything possible to prepare your land very well before planting but I thank God for this experience and for even doing as much as I did, because what I learned as a result of size and how we started couldn't have been possible otherwise.

We successfully completed weeding our cowpea farm but even as I write some portion of our castor farm is still uncleared same with a little portion that we earmarked for consumtion.

My Landlord who has been helping me too monitor the farm tried but he's not totally committed. He supplied the labour and those labour would work for a day or 2 and go elsewhere or back to their primary masters. This really slowed down our work.
The last person that I am still working with said he does not know his number off hand, and besides he keeps his phone in the village hence I needed to rely on my landlord to get across to him. The guy promised to bring 3 other guys with himself to do the job, 2 of the guys can me only ones in the evening and since then they ceased from coming.
The frustration from farm hands has remained a major challenge, even when you are willing to pay they are not ready to work.Hence our battle with the completion of the weeding continues.

What i learnt from this situation is that you must have your own farm manager if you will not be in the farm always and you must have at least 1 or 2 farm workers to make your work successful. If I were to be in the farm daily I would have followed up on my labour till my job is concluded. I would have known their issues and quickly proffer solutions to make their work environment condusive. For instance my landlord is a farmer also and needed to go about solving his own problems. It was while I interacted with my laborer on Saturday that he told me that the people he brought in stopped coming because of transport fare, that if I could get them a place to stay till the work is concluded they would come back. By the time I got the information 5 days had already gone, manager was not aware because he would not have sufficient time to ask questions and interact with them, those guys couldn't come back again apparently they have gotten another engagement.
The need to have our own farm manager who will give daily activity report and provide proper monitoring cannot be overemphasized. Similarly the need to have at least 2 permanent labour for our kind of operations is not negotiable. That actually accounted for my calculation to start with 10hectares so that we would be big enough to take on staff, but all in all I am happy we started and these many issues validate my thoughts and assumptions of what could happen. We shall overcome.

ThisIsBaobab

baobab1:
Can you believe that we are still battling with weeds? My experience with weeds shows why you must do everything possible to prepare your land very well before planting but I thank God for this experience and for even doing as much as I did, because what I learned as a result of size and how we started couldn't have been possible otherwise.

We successfully completed weeding our cowpea farm but even as I write some portion of our castor farm is still uncleared same with a little portion that we earmarked for consumtion.

My Landlord who has been helping me too monitor the farm tried but he's not totally committed. He supplied the labour and those labour would work for a day or 2 and go elsewhere or back to their primary masters. This really slowed down our work.
The last person that I am still working with said he does not know his number off hand, and besides he keeps his phone in the village hence I needed to rely on my landlord to get across to him. The guy promised to bring 3 other guys with himself to do the job, 2 of the guys can me only ones in the evening and since then they ceased from coming.
The frustration from farm hands has remained a major challenge, even when you are willing to pay they are not ready to work.Hence our battle with the completion of the weeding continues.

What i learnt from this situation is that you must have your own farm manager if you will not be in the farm always and you must have at least 1 or 2 farm workers to make your work successful. If I were to be in the farm daily I would have followed up on my labour till my job is concluded. I would have known their issues and quickly proffer solutions to make their work environment condusive. For instance my landlord is a farmer also and needed to go about solving his own problems. It was while I interacted with my laborer on Saturday that he told me that the people he brought in stopped coming because of transport fare, that if I could get them a place to stay till the work is concluded they would come back. By the time I got the information 5 days had already gone, manager was not aware because he would not have sufficient time to ask questions and interact with them, those guys couldn't come back again apparently they have gotten another engagement.
The need to have our own farm manager who will give daily activity report and provide proper monitoring cannot be overemphasized. Similarly the need to have at least 2 permanent labour for our kind of operations is not negotiable. That actually accounted for my calculation to start with 10hectares so that we would be big enough to take on staff, but all in all I am happy we started and these many issues validate my thoughts and assumptions of what could happen. We shall overcome.

ThisIsBaobab

Kudos,great man.You are very much on the right path.

All and all said

The toughest challenge I have experienced and still experiencing as a practical farmer is managing labour.

How do we really solve this?

Let me share with you the need to be objective in every decision you take in farming and why you must be deliberate in your actions and follow your guts feeling.

I know quite well now that beyond passion, farming should be approached as a business and the objective of every business is to make profit. Every action taken by every business man is deliberate and directed towards making profit.

In my own case, after we had issues with starting, because our tractor operator rejected the land that we got, my objective was affected and I shifted from the vision that I had of a neat, orderly and productive farm to just starting and starting anyhow.

The change in objective and neglect of my gut feeling is affecting our farm today. The portion of land where we have our castor is no longer fertile. I saw it when we were apportioned the land, but because of the hurry to start I paid no attention. Hindsight now, I could have rejected the land outrightly or plant only cowpea, or improve the soil with chicken dung before planting began. Above all, I have no regret because this has prepared me for future actions even though it means loosing hundreds of thousands such error cannot repeat itself.
The lesson here, if the land is not fertile and you are not willing to spend a fortune to improve it, do not plant there. Seek for another land, this country is just too blessed and as such anywhere you go you will see land. Also avoid haste. In fact most things done in a hurry turns out to become sin. Keep you goal constant. Your goal is to make profit, allow that guide your decisions and actions, not just your passion.

ThisIsBaobab

MDDarah84:


Kudos,great man.You are very much on the right path.

All and all said

The toughest challenge I have experienced and still experiencing as a practical farmer is managing labour.

How do we really solve this?

The first solution I was able to come up with is to have at least 1 or 2 laborers that will work with you permanently on any of your project. All you need is to provide them with accommodation and agree a yearly payment with them. Then one can get extra hands to support such workers when there are major operations to be done.

Babbao1, I was at my maize farm , thank God for the rain, I will need to weed once again for the cassava to have healthy growth

confluence:
Babbao1, I was at my maize farm , thank God for the rain, I will need to weed once again for the cassava to have healthy growth

congratulations on your progress

Friends, it's been a while that I documented my progress.
We have harvested our beans and the outcome was below expectation, partly because of poor plant population and majorly because of excessive application of insecticide at the first instance.

It is worthy of note that direction of use as recommendationed on insecticide bottles may not help you. Get correct chemical applications from practising farmers.

We have harvested our cowpea, it is surprising how much you are going to spend on post harvest processing when you do not have necessary machinery. My experience shows that having necessary machines will reduce you cost and especially your stress by at least 60%.

Our castor is still in the farm, struggling on a land that has lost its fertility completely. We are not expecting much from it and we would manage our expenditure to maintain minimum cost till we see the end of it.

This represent the end of the diary of a first time farmer. Now I am no longer an inexperienced farmer, as what I have gained by practise and observation, can never be thought in the four walls of harvard.

Are we now ending our agricultural business? Far be it. Rather we are starting with a renewed strength and from the point of experience. Join me in future post as I will be sharing with you my success story (by the grace of God).

ThisIsBaobab

baobab1:


I already had a buyer in the north who promised to supply me improved seeds with a commitment via MOU that I will sell my output to them. I grabbed the opportunity because he also promised to provide me with production guidelines.

Hi, HNY. Hope preparation is already in top gear for this year planting season?
i sent you a PM. i have inquiries to make on the above quote.

okoroemeka:
east west habanero pepper or technjsem avenir f1.20 bags for acre(6 plots) is not fantastic, we have harvested 7 bags from 750 stands of avenir hot pepper,

Sorry to bother U,has technisem improved on their Avenir f1germination problem? or they have new improved seed?