Starting up a Farm is as Easy

Starting up a farm is as easy as a, b, c but when you don’t take the small things into consideration, you might end up wasting energy, time and your hard earned money. Agriculture is one industry that has a variety of potentials and other interesting and lucrative aspects that is both self fulfilling and income generating. Here are a few things you should take into consideration when venturing into the farming business;

Do you have the Agro-philia? – I made this the number one on the checklist as it is pertinent to point out that going into any business that one does not have a passion for is just like stacking up all your cash and setting it ablaze, you need to be totally convinced about farming, you need to have put away the old ideology that farming is meant for the poor people in the rural villages and you need to be as passionate for it like it’s the next thing after your first love. If you are going into farming because you think you don’t have an option, then you would definitely give up once something that seems more appealing comes knocking on your door.Crop or livestock? – You need to determine which aspect of agriculture suits you most or where your interest lies. Either of the two aspects comes with its challenges, right from experience/knowledge, amount of initial capital needed and the market for final sales and distribution. Managing a livestock farm requires having the right skill and expertise; not getting the right resource to set up and manage would lead to total loss of capital.

Planting crops is still easy to delve into as you can wriggle your way to the fundamentals if you can lay your hands on a few write ups from the internet, or watch a few videos. But this aspect is also dependent on  the type of crop you want to grow, as there are a variety of crops that requires a set of skill and care to achieve maximum yield .Capital: this is very much essential as it determines all other factors of production, the capital required also depends on how big you plan to go; a large scale livestock farm requires more capital than a small scale livestock farm the same applies to how much is needed to cultivate in a few acres of land as compared to cultivating hectares.Market: being sure of a ready market for your products, be it livestock or crop is extremely important, most times, a lot of people loose so much produce due to not having a readily available market, especially for crops. You need to be sure that a market is available, if not close but easily accessible and ready to purchase your produce. One needs to be sure of prices of products both on-season and off-season, having this knowledge helps you plan your planting cycle for crop farmers and also gives livestock farmers an idea on when to invest in one livestock or the other.

Human resource: having the wrong hands managing any aspect of your farm is the worst mistake one can ever make. Loosing everything is a sure bet if you don’t take your time to scout for the right human resources. This ranges from, farm managers, farm technician, farm laborers, sales personnel, farm supervisors and other casual hands that would be required from time to time.Research: one can never know it all, as we keep learning and making new discoveries each day, I always advice that people should do so much research on any aspect of agriculture they decide to go into, ask questions and compare answers from people who have already done it, focus on getting information on what their major mistakes were and how they went about making up for it, experience they say is the best teacher, but for a green horn you need to get close to someone who can clear your doubts, open your eyes to the real situation on ground.

Most times, hands-on experience opens your eyes to the bitter truth that what is mostly written on paper is far from reality when it’s actually being practiced.Consult: if you plan to invest huge in farming, I strongly advice that in as much as you follow all above listed guidelines, get an experienced consultant, this way you reduce your mistakes to a minimal/zero level; a good and experienced agricultural consultant would proffer solutions to a variety of issues, ranging from; land acquisition, seed acquisition, sitting of farm, either crop or livestock, market, human resource, pests and diseases and a whole lot of other important issues.

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