₦airaland Forum

The business is dried split ginger trading(i.e buying and selling) in Southern Kaduna.

The business process:
1)Get a warehouse preferably in Kafanchan, which is the capital of Southern Kaduna(Warehouses go for about N300,000/annum).
2)Get a weighing scale(there is one for N35,000 around here called CAMRY).
3)Invite suppliers to supply you cleaned dried split ginger in your warehouse. Suppliers bring unclean ginger to the warehouse premises on a daily basis, clean it to standard under our supervision. In case you are wondering what cleaning really means, it is the process of taking out the following from the ginger bought from the open market or even from the farmer directly: dust(dried ginger comes with dust), ginger affected with disease, muzzle(refers to dried ginger finger that isn't splited), fresh ginger(or not dried to required standard) amongst dried ones, roots(from harvested ginger), and then what is called grade b(the ones that are not looking so bright), other foreign items like rat poo, stones etc; so at the end of the day you are left with only white, dried, cleaned ginger.
4)Once you get required no. of bags, load your goods to your buyers warehouse. SIMPLE.
5)Get paid and start the process all over.

Business Analysis
At the moment, we are buying ginger from suppliers for N8,000(subject to change anytime depending on current open market price. Open market price at this time is between N6,000 - N7,000). So lets say we buy 600bags(which is a full trailer or container load), the cost implication and possible profit at this time will be:
600bags * N8000 = N4,800,000,
Assuming you bought 600bags over a period of 4days and you have
5 supervisors which you are paying N1200/ginger cleaning day(i.e you don't need them or pay them when there is no cleaning to be done),
then 5supervisors * N1,200 * 4days = N24,000,
Bagging of ginger, sewing of bags and scaling of ginger bags(40kg/bag), N80 * 600bags = N48,000,
Loading of Trailer, N20 * 600bags = N12,000.
Transportation: Depends on distance of your buyers warehouse. Within Kafanchan: N50, Within Kaduna: N250, Kano: N400, Lagos: N550. Assuming you are supplying to a buyer within Kaduna state, lets say in Kachia lga, then N250 * 600bags = N150,000.
Total cost = N5,034,000
Your Profit depends on what your buyer is buying, here is what a few buyers i know of are buying at the moment:
ZLM Kafanchan: N250,000/tonne. A tonne is 1000kg or 25nos. of 40kg bag.
ZLM Kachia: same as above,
Afex Kachia: N260,000/tonne
So let assume that you sold to ZLM Kachia,
Your profit for that supply will be, N10,000/bag(i.e N250,000/tonne) * 600bags = N6,000,000 minus N5,034,000, which is N966,000.
Now if you can do 4 supplies in one month, then you should expect N966,000 * 4 = N3,864,000 as profit for that month.

Why do i need investors
I'm already doing the business as you may have guessed. I want to expand - SIMPLE. I need people who can partner with me financially so we can make this supplies bigger and faster. I also want to be able to get large volume of export supplies - i cannot get this at the moment because of capacity.

What is the deal
Warehouse and digital scale already available, just bring in capital for full trailer load which is 600bags, but i can accept from 200bags and above. I run the business, we share the profit 50:50/supply; SIMPLE. Pleas note: you can be on ground to monitor your business if you want to, again i advice you to travel down to Kafanchan to see things for yourself before partnering with me. This offer is not open for long, once i can get capital for 4 trailers/week; i'm good. Mind you, the season will close around August; but things will start slowing down when the rain start fully towards May ending into June.

I believe i can do a mimimum of 3 supplies for you in a month
Meaning that if you go by the profit margin of N966,000/full trailer load supply, we are looking at N2,898,000/month. We share 50:50 and you get N1,449,000 and that is about 30% ROI/month. Of course when season begins to wind up, the margin will reduce also.

Conclusion
There will be legal agreement so that every one can keep to his promises, and of course books will be kept and can be asked for anytime.
Have attached some pictures for your perusal. I am in the last picture inside the container being loaded. Call me on 08038983878 for further discussions. Thank-you.

If you don't live in Southern Kaduna and you want to get involved in the dried split ginger trading(i.e buying and selling), don't buy in the open market - you will most likely fail. Instead follow this process:

1)Get a warehouse preferably in Kafanchan, which is the capital of Southern Kaduna(Warehouses go for about N300,000/annum).
2)Get a weighing scale(there is one for N35,000 around here called CAMRY).
3)Invite suppliers to supply you cleaned dried split ginger in your warehouse. But here is the key, suppliers must bring the unclean ginger to your warehouse premises to clean so that you and your supervisors can be in charge of the supervision of the ginger cleaning to meet up with the required standard of your buyers. Most Exporters opt for GRADE A CLEAN or AMERICAN CLEAN. In case you are wondering what cleaning really means, it is the process of taking out the following from the ginger bought from the open market or even from the farmer directly: dust(dried ginger comes with dust), ginger affected with bacteria locally called mold(probably caused by bagging and keeping for long of ginger not dried to required level), ginger affected by black area(maybe caused by disease from farm), muzzle(not really sure if it is "muzzle" or "muscle" but this refers to dried ginger finger that isn't splited), fresh ginger(or not dried to required standard) among dried ones, roots(from harvested ginger), and then what is called grade b(the ones that are not looking so bright), other foreign items like rat shit, stones etc; so at the end of the day you are left with only white, dried, cleaned ginger.
4)Once you get required no. of bags, load your goods to your buyers warehouse. SIMPLE.
5)Get paid and start the process all over.

At the moment, you can buy ginger from suppliers in your warehouse for N8,000(subject to change anytime depending on current open market price). So lets say your capacity is 600bags(which is a full trailer or container load) before making your own supply to your buyers, the cost implication and possible profit at this time will be:
600bags * N8000 = N4,800,000,
Assuming you bought 600bags over a period of 4days and you have
5 supervisors which you are paying N1200/ginger cleaning day(i.e you don't need them or pay them when there is no cleaning to be done),
then 5supervisors * N1,200 * 4days = N24,000,
Bagging of ginger, sewing of bags and scaling of ginger bags(40kg/bag), N80 * 600bags = N48,000,
Loading of Trailer, N20 * 600bags = N12,000.
Transportation: Depends on distance. Within Kafanchan: N50, Within Kaduna: N250, Kano: N400, Lagos: N550. Assuming you are supplying to a buyer within Kaduna state, lets say in Kachia lga, then N250 * 600bags = N150,000.
Total cost = N5,034,000
Your Profit depends on what your buyer is buying at the moment, here is what a few buyers i know of are buying at the moment:
ZLM Kafanchan: N250,000/tonne. A tonne is 1000kg or 25nos. of 40kg bag.
ZLM Kachia: same as above,
Afex Kachia: N260,000/tonne
So let assume that you sold to ZLM Kachia,
Your profit for that supply will be, N10,000/bag(i.e N250,000/tonne) * 600bags = N6,000,000 minus N5,034,000, which is N966,000.
Now if you can do 4 supplies in one month, then you should expect N966,000 * 4 = N3,864,000 as profit for that month.

Please remember, especially if you are a newbie; do not buy ginger from the open market, get suppliers to supply you at your warehouse. There are more than enough suppliers willing to supply you at a good price. Do not bother with how the are able to supply at that rate, it is their area; they know the place more than you. Think of partnering with someone who is on ground, knows the people and understand the business(not the locals o).

N/B Some buyers will re-clean ginger you supply them before payment, that may waste your time a bit unless your ginger is very up to standard. Better for you if you have capital for more than what you supply at a time so that you can continue buying even if your supplier is delaying by rechecking the standard of ginger you supplied before payment. This really helps you keep your suppliers from drifting to some other buyer.

By the way, once started; work on getting an export deal, the pricing is always better especially as it is priced in US dollars. But you can't get an export deal except you get started, cause international buyers like to send their agents for inspection of the quality of your goods before even getting into any deal.

Gyengyere:
Just continue. I have been following ur thread with great interest. In fact I also went to ginger farming this year but not on a very large scale as u did. Mine just covered 15 plots. Harvest has started and I must confess that the yield is too impressive. I had little knowledge on ginger farming when I started but from ur thread I was able to pick some vital info especially the type of herbicides to be use for weed control.

Good to know you planted ginger also. Like to know about your yield; what was the ratio of bags planted to bags harvested? Please share?

funstufz:
The pictures were taken in your hotel room bah as against the 'block' mentioned in your post...

Please is this a comment, a suggestion, a question or what?

DAY 1: Clearing Started.

So much dry grass on the farm that has to be cleared first before digging starts.

Ok lets see. We should be able to start digging out ginger on tuesday. Been busy arranging for tuesday. I am hopeful.

dnapstar:
Thanks for the update, i am following your updates as i plan to go into ginger farming next year(next season), i have a lot of questions to ask as i have very little margin for error.

It's okay. I will be willing to help answer your questions.

Walexz02:
Just completed 2 tons per batch grain drier.
We always give you the best!

how much for this 2t/batch dryer?

I believe firewood is the source of heat, please confirmed.

What kind of blower does it use?

What is the hp or kva of the generator that can power the blower?

So we are making arrangements now for the main harvest to follow.

Ok people. its harvest time so i am live in Kafanchan. I did promise to complete this story so from henceforth to the sales of our ginger, i will try to give daily updates. I will also be able to answer reasonable questions that you may have concerning what we are discussing.

For a start, i like to show you samples of ginger gotten from three different experimental blocks in the order of the block with adequate macro and micro nutrients to not enough macro and micro nutrients.

First Pix: block with highest nutrient
Second Pix: block with just enough nutrient
Third Pix: block with not enough nutrient

I am doing this because i am interested in results and how they were achieved for future ventures.

Ginger in picture of block with not enough nutrient was also planted very late i should say - june 20 - only chicken manure was used.

Results are as per what one seed of ginger produced based on what amount of nutrient was given it.

saliubello:
can't seem to be able to connect with you via pm. Send me a mail on saliubello2003@yahoo.com so we can take it from there.

I sent a mail to saliubello2003@yahoo.com. Please confirm that you received the mail.

Please check your PM.

muhamm3d:
Above 2m to plant one block of ginger Another internet farmer looking for farming contract. 10 hectares will now be how much? 500 million?
Y'all won't relent. No real farmer has time to type this long article.

@muhamm3d, What is the size of the '1 block' that was started above?

@TangoAlpha: Once again thank you for having a lot of patience with me.

Do you think that this birds were in anyway afraid of human presence(even if this humans were not necessarily trying to scare them), and at what range in meters did you observe the were afraid to come near humans?

TangoAlpha:
I am sorry I do not have the picture on my current phone. I should have the picture available tomorrow.

We didn't get to take many close up shots because they would not allow us. We had two types on our farm. I had to go online to try to identify the birds.

I noticed they were called different names. From African weavers to weavers to quelea to Quelea quelea. And some literature just generalize that family of birds with the Quelea quelea name.

I'll be interested in knowing of these my birds actually aren't Quelea quelea. But then if they aren't, it would mean they share many characteristics of the quelea.

Give me some time to get the picture.

Thank you very much Sir, i appreciate your efforts.

Just to add, so you can reply both at the same time: Did you notice any presence of locust or snails, maybe rats or any other pest of any sort, and about what size for each pest noticed?

TangoAlpha:
Let me respond to your post first.

The birds were already on my farm at the time of planting. A farmer I share boundary with had planted his rice over two months ahead of my rice. The birds had started attacking his rice when I was planting.

By this time my maize was already about a month old.
When the birds were done with my neighbor's rice, instead of leaving for where they usually come from daily, they made Thier home at the boundaries of my farm. Apparently they realised that they was plenty food about to be available to them. They waited patiently for my rice.

When I noticed this, I decided to destroy Their nests; thinking it would give them to migrate. They did migrate, but they moved to the section where my maiz was. At this point my maize was ready for fresh harvest; but I decided to leave it to dry out a bit before harvest. The birds upon discovering that their was Maize and given that rice wasn't ready yet, pounced on the maize.

If they had discovered the maize earlier perhaps they would have attacked it even before it matured. Secondly, it wasn't my rice that attracted them to my farm. My rice encouraged them not to return to where the came from. Even right now they are still on my farm , over a month after the last rice grain was harvested. Intact they now live on my farm; they go out in the morning in search of food, and retire on my farm at the close of a busy day.

Do you have any picture of this birds? Just want to be sure that this birds are Quelea quelea.

@ TangoAlpha, you said that your maize had matured 2mths before it was attacked by this birds. Can you kindly give me the exact month(including the week of the month) you first noticed the presence of quelea in your farm?

Secondly, what stage of production was your rice paddy at the time you first noticed quelea?

Lastly for now, How did you ascertain for a fact that the pest that attacked your farm the most where birds and that the birds where Quelea quelea for sure?

Thanks for your anticipated answers.

OBku4:
Very impressive. Hope to see your update soon. seems the pictures aren't showing.

I and my team plan planting ginger next season, was doing my personal research when I bumped into your post.

would it be possible for us to chat? my WhatsApp no is +2348117506773.

Wish u all the best bro!

Just mail me at e.edide@yahoo.com for now.

Sorry all for not updating since. Please expect update latest 3rd week of November. I promised to tell everyone how the story ended and i will keep to that promise. As per the pictures not showing, may be i don't fully understand how to post pictures here(i uploaded the pixs on a different site and linked it here, surprised it stopped showing after a while). if anyone has a better way of making posted pictures show permanently on nairaland, please kindly help with info. Thanks.

I couldn't ignore farming ginger this year because of what i experienced personally last year in southern Kaduna. I stumbled on an agric commodity here on nairaland called "dried split ginger", so much was said about it that i decided to travel down to Kafanchan to see things for my self.
I experienced dried split ginger buyers troop into the different markets on market days rushing to buy the commodity - dried split ginger is clearly the most sort after commodity that Southern Kaduna has to offer.
Dried split ginger price went up to as high as N650k/tonne(for grade 1 cleaned) around January ending this year as against about N550k/tonne when i first arrived Kaf as at first week of December 2016.
There are many kinds of buyers for this product: Exporters(This ones buy only grade 1 cleaned ginger and bag them in 40kg bags ready for export, 25bags make 1tonne), Local buyers(who come to the open market to buy and then go clean them to standard and supply to exporters who hardly come to buy in the open market themselves) and then lastly, Buyers from the core Northern part of Nigeria(who bring their trailers to the open market to buy and load ginger to their location. i believe this product is exported from there to nearby Niger, Chad etc).
My interest is selling my grade 1 cleaned dried split ginger to exporters(assuming the local price will go high at the opening of the ginger season around November this year like it did last year; because as of now, this isn't the case) or export it myself.
So enough of the intro, i got some partners to do this with me and together we were able to plant about 10hectares of ginger farm on two separate locations in the same village of Tudun Wada(Kanikon) of Southern Kaduna state. Planting was completed on the 2nd week of June 2017(of course after overcoming a lot of challenges).
Going forward, i want to share updates on the farm here so others can learn. I will give update on what has been done so far now, and then future events of the farm will follow up to harvesting, processing, warehousing and eventual selling off of the commodity.

So far
First, we had acquired about 6 hectares of farmland in Tudun Wada 2 from the village head and 4 hectares of farmland from someone else in Tudun Wada 1(the farms are about 1.5km apart). They series of events that followed are:

Land Preparation - Land clearing to remove tree stumps first, then plowing the land with a tractor. Followed by spreading/spraying of chicken manure(not fresh, but kept for some months to compost). Manure was not mixed with soil yet, this was done during planting. The last thing for land preparation was making main blocks, sub blocks and rain gutters. Main blocks so that we could divide each partners farm appropriately, sub blocks to control the spreading of ginger appropriately to avoid over-clustering(we knew how many bags of ginger we wanted in a block), rain gutters to control movement of rain water in the farm to avoid washing away of ginger after planting.

Picture order(this pix were taken in Tundun Wada 2 farm):
1. Tractor plowing farm
2. Same as 1 above
3. Me
4. Carrying of chicken manure to areas tractor has finished plowing
5. Spacing of chicken manure
6. Same as 5 above
7. Creating of sub blocks/rain gutter
8. Same as 7 above
https://i.imgur.com/anKVSON.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/gsH3iEA.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/lbVKl1a.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/x1EyZGF.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Sez20x0.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/3tKrHKE.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/AguUPU6.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/1Csqunt.jpg

Seed Preparation - A full ginger body has to be broken into pieces depending on how many bud mouths are visible on it, this allows for multiplication; in fact, this is the reason we are farming the ginger itself, multiplication. So we organized women in the community in groups to break up the ginger according to specification. We had a supervisor to each group to keep record of what each person in the group has done for payment purposes and to monitor and make sure ginger is broken as instructed.

Picture order:
1. Women queuing up to receive their bag of ginger for breaking
2. Breaking begins
3. Same as 2 above
4. Same as 2 and 3 above
https://i.imgur.com/c68jAam.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/LhsonEW.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/35XcAe7.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/KzPcciY.jpg

Planting - Planting ginger is quite stressful. They planters are divided into groups of about 5 persons per sub block, one out of the rest breaks up the soil in a straight line with a hoe while they other group members quickly places the seed spacing it about 6inches apart. The soil breaker then goes on to repeat the same thing he did just next to previous line, thereby covering the first line of placed ginger with soil and in the process mixing up the compost manure and the soil. This is repeated until a sub block is completed. There is a supervisor appointed for each group to make sure that ginger is planted according to specified spacing and for record keeping.

Picture 1 to 7:
https://i.imgur.com/zTqQNWa.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/oHFeVXm.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/phYIIFw.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/9QHIAVo.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/5LUvVUJ.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/T2iDK7R.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/IXClU1T.jpg

Weeding -Hand weeding is ruled out because of the size of this farm. I believe it will be way too expensive to achieve hand weeding with the size of this farm because of the number of labourers you have to employ to achieve this. First of all, immediately after planting each major block; we did spray "cutlass" or "double force" depending on which of them was available in the market at the time of purchase, both are herbicides and have equal strength. Our consultants advice that we do this to avoid having overpowering weeds in the farm for a very long time. I think they were right on this one because considering the time which we finished the first major block - 22nd of may - up to this point, we do not yet have overwhelming weeds in the farm; weeds only started sprouting in some places after about 6weeks of planting that block. My guess is that we should have had a considerable amount of weed in that farm by now, seeing that the ginger itself had grown considerably, and secondly rain is falling.
A fortnight ago, we embarked on the second spraying of the farm with herbicides; concentrating only on those places where sprouted weeds are obvious. This time, our consultants disapproved of cutlass or double force because of their strength - the ginger plant is already shooting and may be killed along side the weeds. They advised us to use "diuron" or equivalent product combined with "dragon" to do the job. We used "Diutex" - a diuron equivalent - this is what was available at the time of purchase. The effect of this combination is milder on the ginger itself. The ginger turns a little yellowish a few days after spraying and then recovers about 7-10 days after spraying as far as rain is falling. A full sachet of diutex is mixed with 1 liter of water and then a full peak tin milk container of it is poured into the sprayer(which has a 16 liter container), half peak tin milk of dragon is also poured into the sprayer, and then water is filled to the bream of the sprayer. Everything mixes together and then spraying begins.

Picture of a 16liter spraying container:
https://i.imgur.com/UgdoL5c.jpg


Application of NPK Fertilizer - After weeding we did apply NPK and hope to apply Urea July ending.

Costing - Let me give you a rundown of costing so far for only one major block of the farm where we succeeded in planting 135bags or solos of fresh broken ginger owned by one of our partners' SEPJOCA Nig. Ltd.
*Land renting for 1 farming season plus clearing plus tractor plowing - N250,000
*100 bags(bags plus caps) of ginger bought @ N10000/bag as at the time of purchase, now N7000 - N1,000,000
*Ginger breaking labour - N75,000
*Transport/loading/off loading of 100bags of ginger to place of breaking near farm location @ N500 - N50,000
*Purchase 400bags of chicken manure @ N800/bag - N320,000
*Transport 135bags(bags without caps this time, thereby making it smaller) of broken ginger,
400 bags of chicken manure from farm warehouse to site including packing of ginger in bags/sewing of bags
and loading/off loading - N120,500
*Planting 135bags(bags without caps) @ N1,500/bag - N202,500
*6 Planting supervisors @ 1500/day - N9,000
*Spray of herbicides so far - N70,000
*25 bags of NPK 15:15:15 @ N8,500 - N212,500
*Transportation of NPK plus loading/off loading plus spraying labour - N10,000

Total so far for this block = N2,319,500.00

Our expectation: This is one part i am careful to talk about since this is my first time of planting ginger, but the community farmers claim that this is their second year of planting ginger and that ginger did marvelously well here last planting season - we'll see. Like i said earlier, multiplication is the name of the game. For instance, for the block which i gave costing above; we have planted 135bags, will we get say x20 of what we planted? Some farmers in the community claim that last year the did x25 of what they planted - we'll see. For me, i am anxiously waiting and hoping that the harvest comes out as speculated and that the price of dried split ginger goes somewhere near what happened last year at the beginning of the season in November.

Hopefully in 3weeks time i will be able to upload the present pictures of the farm(I'm not around at the moment).

Will keep u Posted. God bless you.

Gud work.

Very inspiring thread. Thanks for the education.

Make sure to come back strong Carl.

Hmmmn, sorry for the flood.

Nasarawa too?

See Marvis o.

dis guy played very well at the just concluded FIFA confederation cup.

So u mean u can lodge a complain to police and the will do something about it. Hmmmn!

I feel your concern Sir.

Hmmn! this flood thing serious o.

Gud for dem.

This flooding thing serious o.