Contents:

1. Group management,
2. Savings and financial management,
3. Basic business and marketing,
4. Technology and Innovation
5. Natural resource management for sustainable
production

What skills might you need if you started an agricultural
business?

1. Group organization management
For a small farmer groups 20 - 25 people. If they are going
to stay together and manage themselves effectively over
time, they need adhere to the principles of good self
governance, and they need to be able to set and achieve
common objectives.

2. Savings and financial management,

Very vital for individuals and groups to successfully move
out of poverty.

Individuals within a group contribute small amounts of
money on a regular basis to a group savings fund, and when
that fund grows and give each other small loans to
individuals within the group.

The poor face adversity everyday, in an emergency, for
instance when the child falls sick, they either need money on credit or they need to sell off their assets such as chickens, goats or crops.

Obviously, If they regularly sell off their assets, they can
never accumulate enough assets to move out of poverty.
So access to savings and credit provide an absolutely vital
buffer While they are saving and managing their funds in
these groups, they are also learning a lot about other vital
important financial skills.

3. Basic business and marketing skills Important if
people are going to engage effectively with markets.

In addition to basic numeracy and book keeping skills, group members need to be able to identify what are real and authentic market opportunities within their area and they also need to understand the value chains associated with those commodities in-order to understand the best entry points for them and their group.

4. Technology and Innovation

As soon as the groups become involved in business, they
understand that they need to access and apply new
technology.

They immediately need to improve the productivity,
profitability and often their product quality in order to stay
competitive.


They need to know where to access the relevant information
within their communities, how to systematically evaluate
that technology, decide what is most relevant within their
system and how to apply those innovations within their
system to achieve the results they want.

One thing to consider within this process, is the potential
power of the Internet.

5. Natural resource management for sustainable
production

Everyone is aware that Natural resources are disappearing
very rapidly especially in rural areas of the developing
world.

Forests and trees, water resources, soil and soil fertility are
all in rapid decline and when they are gone, so are the
potential livelihoods of rural populations.

Rural communities have a great need to understand the
principles and methods for protecting the productivity of
their existing resources and even better to enhance the
productivity of natural resources available to them.

When they understand the principles of natural resource
management, and options that are available, they can work
with those to design their own systems. Often the potential
to improve livelihoods this way is often enormous.

Benefits from combining all the 5 skill sets in agriculture;
Increases in volume of 4 fold of product sold Increase in
price received for product, 30 -50% Increase in number of
participants in the collective marketing process, from 5000
to more than 9000 farmers Increases in sales, new farmer
groups negotiated better sales for their produce.

Source: www.realestogram.com/2016/12/5-skills-that-will-help-your.html

Also Read: Ten ways youths Can boost Their Agriculture Businesses with ICTs click this link!! www.realestogram.com/2016/12/10-ways-youths-can-boost-their.html

Also: Ten Ways to earn a living With Agriculture Without Owning A Farm!! www.realestogram.com/2016/12/10-ways-to-earn-living-from-agriculture.html