Now that you identified your market...for whatever you have decided to cultivate ....in the case of crops....or rear ...in the case of animal husbandry....you need to find an area of strength....or rather comparative advantage . By this I mean advantage in terms of closeness to market, soil quality to support your crops, technicalities etc. You need to be able to grow what you think will be more cost effective for you in the long run. Remember you are in business for profit . Unless of course you plan to consume you crops .

I had this challenge while starting out too...i just wanted to grow everything....from vegetables....to herbs ....to cash crops....and then food crops...and flowers....but then I realized that I could not do everything . Even if I wanted to, the financial muscle is not there to carry out all these activities on a commercial scale . I had to do a bit of many things to know if it will work out eventually. I grew vegetables...tried out some things that I felt could only grow in Europe or some other temperate climates. I was shocked at my results. God has indeed blessed this country Nigeria. But then I had to backtrack , and concentrate on a number of items that I could grow without too much issues/stress. At a point I was only growing two items .

You can sell everything, but you cannot grow everything. That is the basis of my discussion with two of my female acquaintances who are just stepping into the sometimes murky, treacherous and at times late rewarding waters of agriculture. Two very brilliant minds , they had good heads on their shoulders , very smart ideas ....but we had to agree that you can sell anything and everything but you can't grow everything.

The general idea is that people who intend to practice at both ends of the business, I.e production and marketing...you may not be able to satisfy your customers with all they need . Therefore, identify your strength, work at it and be the best for it. What you can't grow, you buy from other farmers or the market and make your clients happy .

The idea of doing few items is that as a new entrant in the business you will have the unique opportunity to learn the business and become a master of one and not jack of all trades . You can easily monitor your crops and give them needed attention and from there you can slowly expand . This is another mistake a lot of newbies make. They want to start big...say cultivate 10ha of a crop at the same time . NO. There is an adage that says you don't test the depth of a river with two legs. Once you put the first leg and its going too deep, you quickly backtrack to avoid stories that touch. Agriculture is not a get rich quick venture. Even the masters make mistakes too.

Don't get me wrong . It is a good idea to have ambition, but you can cut your coat according to your cloth. But you will need to be methodical in your approach and flow with the rhythm of the seasons and the market .

On my next snippet, I will continue with " Get and flow with the rhythm ".

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Ciao

SA
Chief Executive Farmer