After the "success" of my success story. sharing how I did it and what I did. I have received numerous calls, countless e-mails and text messages from people who are interested in setting up cucumber farms.

Right now, I have close to 10 different people who have set up such farms 1 hectare and above in the past 30days. I fear that at this rate, there might be a glut in the market.

I have come to understand that Nigerians are very crowd-oriented (sorry that word was culled out of my personal word bank ). The word means we like to move with the crowd.

I give you an example. A couple of years back, there was massive campaign on cassava farming. back then cassava was the ish, people were making millions from cassava, right now everybody is farming cassava. and the price of cassava seems to have dropped drastically. because the consumer seems to have too many options. we have less cassava millionaires now than 3 years ago.

same has happened to poultry, catfish farming, pineapple, oil palm e.t.c.

it's a no-brainer. I am an economist and one of the first thing you are taught in basic economics class is, when demand is more than supply, there exist SCARCITY and when supply is more than demand there exist CHOICE

CHOICE is the worst thing that can ever happen to a producer. If majority of the goods in the market share the same type and quality. most producers will be poor.

As a matter of fact, as a producer, I pray and ask God everyday for scarcity of products so that I can do shakara for the consumers. .

If you don't understand this simple principle. understand it now.


So in this effect, as much as I can see a glut in cucumber market very soon, i am here to list quick alternatives that you can farm this year and make a killing selling it in your locality.

Let me at this point say this. Cucumber is by no means the most profitable vegetable. Far from it. The only reason anyone is failing in what he or she is doing is because they are doing it wrong. Don't blame it on the innocent crops.

I hear some people post stuff on how u cannot make profit from this crop or that crop and I just laugh to myself.

The first step is accepting that you made a mistake along the line of production, the second step is tracing your steps from land preparation to planting to harvest and see where you got it wrong. third step is correcting that mistake.

Please don't plant anything that is readily available in the market except you have a better quality specie or you know you can break even selling at a cheaper price.

With the much l have been exposed to, can't imagine myself following d crowd! Those foreign veggies that is sold at cut-throat prices at Shoprite & co will be my focus. God knows how much they are ripping off in d name of cauliflower, broccolli etc.

All through last year, I was deep in research on watermelon.
TRUE- there is watermelon everywhere in the market but there is no guarantee on sweetness
secondly, one discouraging factor for me in buying watermelon (as much as I love watermelon) is the seed battle. that is one battle that gets very old and boring when eating watermelon. I just hate those numerous seeds.

So what do I do as a farmer? I started researching on watermelon with few seeds and extremely sweet.

To my surprise, there actually exist seedless watermelons. although they are not peculiarly sweet, they are seedless. that's one big bullet dodged.

pressing on in research, I discovered a watermelon specie, so sweet that sugar begins to taste plain in your mouth. (it has seeds tho). That was the only downer.

I decided to procure few of the seeds. I planted and got some shocking results.

Following, was at your training on Saturday. Huge fan of yours

Following. Im a huge fan

The result of my watermelon experiment:
The seedless watermelon was seedless but not sweet at all.

The over sweet watermelon was seedy and just conventionally sweet.

I was really disappointed, extremely disappointed and devastated. infact if I did not know better I would have accused my seed suppliers of scamming me.

I scrapped that project and started looking towards other things.

Few months past and I visited a friend in abuja. It si happened that he just harvested his watermelons. so we relaxed to destroy the poor fruit together.

Was I in for a shocker! The watermelon was as sweet as what cannot be spoken of in a public forum. My brain was giving me that tingly feeling you get when impulses are going back and forth in light year speed.

What's going on? I asked him where he got the seed from. He told me it was the few sample I sent to him from the one I planted.

I couldn't believe it. is this not the same seed I planted? I asked to visit his field and behold it was his backyard. I saw the seedless one there too! I took one, harvested and behold, sweet again!

I asked him how he planted and everything he said was the exact method I used. so... I knew the sweetness had to come from a natural conditioning. what went wrong?

was it my soil? was it about manure or fertilizer?

[quote author=jasper7 post=30427655]The result of my watermelon experiment:
The seedless watermelon was seedless but not sweet at all.

The over sweet watermelon was seedy and just conventionally sweet.

Was I in for a shocker!

I couldn't believe it. is this not the same seed I planted?


Jasper, u too much, please ride on. This 2015, is for change... Keep it up bro.

I just started looking around, sniffing like a dog and observing to see if I would notice any difference.
oh... I forgot one other factor. Climate!

was it because of the excess wind in abuja. or the relative heat in the afternoon and coolness in the evening. that didn't sound logical, so.. I scratched it.

The whole day was frustrating to me. why would I consciously fail in something that other people are succeeding in unconsciously. My night that day was plain horrible, couldn't sleep.

Next morning, am up. I woke my friend up and told him let's water the garden. He was just casual about thw whole thing. while we were watering he opened up to me and said he's surprised the watermelon is doing so great despite the fact he has not been watering it for some time due to work issues.

I was already yabbing him, how careless and silly he is and all that. how I water mine regularly bla bla bla. And ding! a light bulb just came over my head. I was doing it, he was not, his watermelons are sweet mine were not.

I started asking him series of questions and I discovered that when the fruits had grown to desirable size he did not feel the need for watering again. Did the lack of water actually make his watermelon achieve maximum sweetness? FOOD FOR THOUGHT

following

Pavore9:
With the much l have been exposed to, can't imagine myself following d crowd! Those foreign veggies that is sold at cut-throat prices at Shoprite & co will be my focus. God knows how much they are ripping off in d name of cauliflower, broccolli etc.

Exactly! If you start making money off it now, you'll see the whole entourage coming to destroy your market. . but before then you'd have gotten your money and ran away.

so... I opened my research on watermelon again, and started studying on how to achieve maximum sweetness, I googled, I read and I called big time farmers in my native country thailand (you all know my thai roots are very strong).

And I understood that the more you deprive a watermelon fruit of water, the sweeter it becomes. but it's quite dicey cause deprive it for too long and you are sitting on a time bomb. and start depriving it too early and you'll not achieve marketable size.

so... my conclusion was, watermelon is best grown under regulated water. where you can determine when, where and how much water it gets to achieve super sweetness, maximum size and attractive skin.

and once you talk of regulating conditions, the first thing that pops into a farmers mind is greenhouse.

but it's not economically wise at all to grow watermelons in greenhouses. why? watermelons are field crops. why? because they crawl on the ground and need alot of space to grow. so.... what size of greenhouse will give me the 10,000 stands of watermelon I need? A massive one! At least a 2 hectare size of greenhouse. where do I raise such funds from? and how long will it take to recoup my expenses?. The numbers were not in my favour. I needed a cheaper, easier and satisfactory solution and I needed it fast, because I wanted to start making money from both the seedless and the supersweet watermelon in 2015 (project 2015).

Took long enough but I got a solution. one I am yet to try out commercially. but will do this February.

water melons farmers shld comment here ooooo. some farmer's on this thread noticed their water melon bursted on the field because of irregular watering. i wonder if this specie will survive bursting.

so... watch this space for that one. my system works, but I want to try it commercially, make some money, before I teach people. .

But why did I tell the long story. like most farmers in Nigeria, I had given up on my brilliant idea and termed it impossible and not workable in Nigeria, untill I met someone who had achieved what I was struggling with without even knowing it was a challenge to me.

@jasper7, u are very right on d issue of regulated water as l tasted a super sweet watermelon when l visited an aquaponics farm run by some Rev.Sisters & also d waste water from d fishponds which they use for d cultivation is a factor-l open mouth!

mercylicious:
water melons farmers shld comment here ooooo. some farmer's on this thread noticed their water melon bursted on the field because of irregular watering. i wonder if this specie will survive bursting.

That's why I said the sweetening technique is both dicey and technical . the watermelons will not all mature at the same time. so... you have to be careful how long you keep them without water and how much water you give them when you continue. in order not to affect the immature ones. Na months of research at work my sister + trials and error. Nobody should try it without proper information o.

Pavore9:
@jasper7, u are very right on d issue of regulated water as l tasted a super sweet watermelon when l visited an aquaponics farm run by some Rev.Sisters & also d waste water from d fishponds which they use for d cultivation is a factor-l open mouth!

yes o... organic farming + regulated water = super sweet watermelon

All the same Jasper, well done.

blueblood1:
Following. Im a huge fan

My brother, I duff my hat

Before I get to the matter. where I'll be listing 5 super hot agriculture products that the CHOICE has not come up with yet. and you'll make millions from easily and they are not cucumber, I just want us to understand this.

If you want to be a king, make the decision of kings. A king does not have the luxury of making inconsequential and trivial decisions. Every decision a king makes can make or mar the lives of a whole nation, empire, dynasty or colony. Only commoners can be found making trivial decisions.

We always want to play around our comfort zone. That's too trivial. come, play in the wild. take that extra step. that's the only way we young people can change the game and rule Agribusiness in Nigeria.

I know cucumber is looking safe for now, because somebody has succeeded in it. but I had to bold step and fight like bull to do it.

I know we all have had "crazy ideas" in the past. Let's dig them out and work towards it.

jasper7:

yes o... organic farming + regulated water = super sweet watermelon

Most of our local farmers are not too inquisitive as you are bt once u breakthrough everyone would want to copy & paste 2 their farms!

1st crop I want to talk about here is STRAWBERRY. Despite how impossible it looks at the moment, I have been made to understand that strawberries will and can grow in Nigeria. Do you know that you have no single competitor in your locality if you start producing strawberry? you can set your own price and do shakara for customers.

I can boldly tell you that, many Nigerians have not seen, talkless of touching a strawberry before in their lives. but we are not too alien to it because we take a lot of strawberry juice in Nigeria.

Speaking of juice, you can be the sole supplier to a local juice company in your area. except of course you are living in the rural areas.

I know pavore9 has spoken so much about strawberry farming using aquaponics.

If I was searching for how I'll make easy money from agriculture, I'd be speaking with pavore now. trying to get ideas, videos, pictures and notes, if possible visiting a strawberry farm in kenya. it's all about trial and error. when you get it right, you'll be a KING.

or, you can wait, I'll find time and visit those farms this year, maybe when I come back I'll charge you to teach you

2. CABBAGE: Another big one. Most cabbage we consume are grown in the north. and there over a thousand different species of cabbage that are bigger, juicier and better than the one from the north.

Believe it or not, Nigerians consume a whole lot of cabbage. selling a good quality cabbage in your city alone can turn you into a millionaire once you get the production right.

it's all about getting the production right. you cannot do that without research practise and experiments

3. Mushrooms, when I think mushroom, I remember the likes of moringa, aloe vera, quail eggs e.t.c. I invited a friend to my farm to show him the easiest way to grow mushroom. He told me he was not interested in mushroom because he doesn't know where to sell it. I just cancelled the guy in my mind. He's not ready to make money.

what do those products I mentioned have in common?
1. they had a little or non-existent market in Nigeria just a few years back. but due to enlightenment on their health values et al, they are being bought in Nigeria by Nigerians as if their life depends on it.

This same goes with cucumbers. people were buying it before now, only for salads, only a few ate it fresh as it were. but after a campaign on the health benefits of cucumber, people started buying it like crazy.

I have personally discovered that if you want to sell products in Nigeria pitch your sales on health benefits, run campaigns for it and watch people buy your products. and mushroom has alot of those benefits.

I haven't had time, this is one of the agro-products I'll end up growing commercially.

if you want to be a king in agric, don't grow what there's already a functional market for. keyword being functional. functional markets bring quick money, but not sustainable.

Please note that there's a difference between functional and existing.

Here cabbage is like their equivalent to ugu. lt sold by everyone who sells vegetable, with 10Ksh (N21) the seller will slice into tiny bits and package cabbage l know l can not get for N100 in Lagos. lt is very possible to grow it outside the North.

Oga Jasper,
My brother there's a big reward in taking a bolder step to do what others have no gut to do.
I bless d day I decided to move from agiculture into Agribusiness.
My only advice for everyone is to go all out and break a fallow ground. Dont be afraid to take that bolder step.

l was joking with one of the Rev.Sisters here in Nairobi who is also Nigerian that if she was the regular business woman she for don become multi-millionaire with her out-of-box approach 2 agriculture, d videos she has on her laptop are mind-blowing!

@ Jasper... Keep it up.
I believe your aim(all the teachers) of agric practice and business on this forum is for a glut and thus bringing down the cost of food, fruits and whatever. I believe we have not gotten there yet even for cucumber. Fruits are bought at ease in developed world. Let's sensitize the gray areas of these businesses and turn our world. May God bless you abundantly.

@pavore..
.I saw your email....I sent you an e-mail

nigerfine:
@pavore..
.I saw your email....I sent you an e-mail

Noted.

4. Shrimp Farming. I know, the first thing that is running through some people's mind is... shrimp farming? Yes.... shrimp farming. yes... you can grow it domestically, yes.... it can grow in freshwater. Not really water... more of mud ponds. Am not speaking from what I have read or what I have researched. I am speaking from experience. The set-up is very expensive and hectic, but the rewards are over and beyond whatever we can think or imagine. If anybody starts working on that now, he'll completely colonise the shrimp market in Nigeria for years to come.

There's not much I can say about this, because I have my 2 eyes and legs preparing for it. because it will be an uphill task when the time comes.