jethro2:
Registration has started for our next training.
Training is April 4th - 29th.

We can only accommodate 10 participants for the month.
Training fee remain the same.
N25,000 for a month
N15,000 for two weeks
N10,000 for a week.

Please be prepare for practical farm work.
Crops that will be taught includes but not limited to Tomatoes, Chilli Pepper, Sweet Pepper, Cucumber, Radish, Water melon, Corn, etc.

Series of topics are:
Land preparation and sowing for nursery and direct sowing crops.

Treating and knowing your soil

The best irrigation system to use

Farm set up for maximum yield

Making your own organic insecticide

water application to crops

Disease and pest control

harvesting and sorting for grade

Market and marketing strategy

Make hay why the sunshine.
Be an employer of labour
let's create job

TCF1980:
Oga Jethro2. Any DVD for those that can't attend the practical training?

domack99:
Wow, what a nice thread, this is really a resource centre for anyone going into vegetable farming.
Kudus to the op, Jethro and those that make the thread lively (choiceman, povore9, jeffmyson, etc).
I have to contact you guys, I was into poultry farming in the earlier part of my career but got a job and have to move on, have like ten accres of land along lagos Ibadan expressway to play with. I have picked up interest in greenhouse farming when we visited a farm in south Africa some years back, I never new Nigerians are already picking up fast, most I heard are in Jos area.
Two months ago I re-open the case on vegetable farming, am about to order some books on the planting and diseases control, surprisingly I never stumble on this thread until today.
Unfortunately I don't have a personal backyard that I can do a pilot project, my plan is to get as much knowledge as possible, visit farms for practical experience.
Jethro, choiceman and co, I will be contacting you guys for support and consultation.

Akabay:
@OP.................... Job weldone God will increase ur knowledge, infact wit ds priceless info but very educative by doing this you are making more youths out there to be more productive nd job creator instead of job seekers .................... For those ppl who ve attended practical training the upcoming farmers would want u to share ur testimony with us to serve as motivation........ Thanx y'all.

Willie2015:

If you need practical training on vegetable farming, just get down to Ago Amodu with Jethro.
You will get the required information/training for you to succeed. Be prepare to make your own nursery and manage it till it is ready for transplanting to the main field. You will personally transplant your nursery plants to the main field and learn how to take care of your plants. You will learn how to handle your plants in the field and manage pests with any other scenarios that come up during the process.
You also need to prepare for the physical aspect of the training. We had to wake up early in the morning to get to farm and stay on the farm for long period till late in the evening. Cucumber staking was damn difficult for me, Lord; I developed back pain on the first day of staking from digging. Thank God for local herbs from one of the vendors, worked like magic.
We also observed how different irrigation system works, participated in the installation process and decide the best kit for vegetables. Visiting other large farms in the axis with government assisted irrigation system was just tip on the iceberg to observe challenges being faced by farmers. We had many sessions and discussions on market and market strategies that will assist upcoming farmers to avoid costly mistakes. IFDC materials served as reinforcing instruction for practical work that had been completed on the farm and best practices.
With this training, you will walk through the whole farm processes and see the big picture with challenges being faced by farmers on a daily basis. You will learn and see for yourself that farming is not easy, require hard work, being smart, patience, dedication and prayer like any white collar job.
If you make up your mind to attend the training, don’t forget to visit Aimasiko restaurant in Sepeteri, they have good pounded yam with veg, there is a local joint for cow head/leg, bush rabbit and grass cutter ( can’t remember the name), you can also get good supply of palm wine to knock it down.

Akabay:
@OP.................... Job weldone God will increase ur knowledge, infact wit ds priceless info but very educative by doing this you are making more youths out there to be more productive nd job creator instead of job seekers .................... For those ppl who ve attended practical training the upcoming farmers would want u to share ur testimony with us to serve as motivation........ Thanx y'all.

007Power:
Hello Ronnie,

What lofty ideas you have BUT before you dash out to spend those millions, you might first want to check out the current price trend of tomatoes. The 50 - 55kg baskets are currently selling at N2000 or N2400 per basket; which is about N36 to N40 per kilo. Unless you are running a charity Organisation, I do not see how your hydroponic farm will be able to compete by selling even lower than N36 per kilo in other to break the cartel as you nobly intend to do.

Why I do not intend to discourage you, the hard fact is that Nigeria is not yet ripe (and may never be ripe in our lifetime) for hydroponic tomatoes. A lot of input capital is required and the result is a pesticide free and herbicide free tomatoes that are very heavy and healthy. ONLY THREE PIECES OF THESE HYDROPONIC TOMATOES MAKE 1Kg. Now, in America, hydroponic tomatoes (depending on variety) are sold at around $3 - $4 per pound which in kg will be around $5.7 - $7.4 per kg.

In Naira equivalent and using N208 per dollar, that will be a mouth watering N1,200 - N1,500 per kg for about 3 pieces of tomatoes! (How I wish this country is like America, I would have long been into hydroponic tomatoes!) Now, the Best you can do is to START SMALL and focus on making supplies to FIVE STAR HOTELS ALONE. Then slowly expand to high-end stores, restaurants and that is just about it!

Now you tell me, if you have N2400 in your pocket and want to buy tomatoes (IN THESE HARSH TIMES) would you rather buy 6 pieces of hydroponic tomatoes or a BASKET-FULL of our local tomatoes? You might want to visit a nearby market to sample their responses! I myself had bubbles of these dreams just as you do now but these bubbles got bursted with the reality of feasiblity studies.

Yes, hydroponic tomatoes are a beauty to behold, very fresh and spotless, very hygenic and disease free. I remember how startled I was the first time I saw and held one in my hands (during one of my travels abroad) and I couldn't help but compared it to our little-sized, unhygenic and diseased local varieties here in Nigeria; BUT WHO CARES? AND AS LONG AS NO ONE CARES, HYDROPONIC TOMATOES IS FAR AHEAD OF OUR TIMES!

007Power:
Hello Tundebabzy, unless you are one of the few who walk into shoprite to buy big beef tomatoes at N1,999 per kilo (yes, you read it correctly!), then there is no reason why you should encourage people to invest in LARGE SCALE hydroponic tomatoes when the market is very tiny!

Again, you wrote and I quote: "If you can produce healthy looking, big tomatoes, trust me, you will sell out every time because there's a big demand for such products." Trust you Do you own a LARGE SCALE hydroponic tomato farm that makes you speak with such certainty? If you do, I will love to visit your farm! And if you don't, again why are you encouraging people to go into such a high risk investment with very little market opportunity. I say "high risk" because there is one similar farm near Enugu that failed woefully after the owner had invested millions!

The problem with hydroponics is that it is too scienfific. One, just one overlooked factor will cause your entire farm to fail within minutes or hours, not days!!!! As I write this, I have a hydroponic garden at my backyard and if I may use your words; trust me, I speak from experience! Just one wrong mix of nutrients, or direct exposure to sun or improper ph adjustment or rainwater increasing alkalinity or acidity of nutrient, or the nutrient solution exceeding 25 deg centigrade or excessive humidity or improper lighting (I have even tried them indoors and provided supplemental light, but NEPA contributed to my woes! If I rely on generator, how much sef I go even make out it!!!!);Just one if these factors gone wrong will destroy your crops not in days but in minutes or hours! NOT TO MENTION THAT IT IS A FULL TIME JOB!!!! You don't do hydroponics part-time!!! I repeat - if one factor goes wrong, your entire crops are at risk! Think of doing this on a large scale when there will be even more factors - the pumps, pipes, valves, uninterrupted power, air pumps, leakages, diseases (all these must be inspected 4 or 5 times daily) and you will see how next to impossible it is to have workers as diligent as you that will ensure that nothing goes wrong without it being remedied within few minutes!!! IF THE PUMP BECOMES FAULTY AT NIGHT OR NEPA BEHAVES AS USUAL FOR JUST ONE HOUR AND THE GENERATOR REPAIRER IS YET TO FINISH HIS MAINTENANCE ON YOUR GEN SETS, SAY FAREWELL TO YOUR ENTIRE CROPS !!!!

Most importantly, The reason why I said that hydroponics is beyond us now is that the available information you can ever find in hydroponics are all tailored to the western world with their distinct climate from ours. Before hydroponics could be viable in Nigeria, we need our chemists, agricultural engineers, scientists, botanists and the others to work together and come out with a method of hydroponics suited for our climate.

An example to illustrate what I am saying is this: All the nutrient formulas you can ever find in a good hydroponic book works best within the temperature range THAT DOES NOT EXCEED 25deg centigrade during the day! In Nigeria, you can have this 25deg only at night, during the day, the nutrient solution gets real warm if not slightly hot! At that temperature, the nutrient solution starts undergoing other imperceptible chemical reactions leaving the already mixed solution practically useless and your crops taking eternity to grow! Not to mention that this high temperature greatly offset the ph balance! So we need the people mentioned above to come out with nutrient formulas that remain intact UNDER HOT WEATHER!

So I repeat, as far as Nigeria is concerned, hydroponics is far ahead of our times (and maybe I should add) UNTIL ADEQUATE ATTENTION IS GIVEN TO IT TO COME OUT WITH WHAT WORKS FOR OUR CLIMATE, PERIOD!!!!


As a aside note; curiosity they say, is the Mother of invention; while waiting for our team of experts to give us a viable nutrient solution for our hot climate, I have been able to come up with a means that works for me in hot weather as far as the nutrient is concerned. My ugu plants love it! Only that in direct sunshine, they bend as if to break! I have moved them to shade and they are Happy there. I have tried the trick on tomatoes and so far so good. Again, the tomatoes need shade, they wilt under direct sun. Until these tomatoes grow to harvest then I can beat my chest and boast of success! Then and only then, I can think of LARGE SCALE since my method works under our hot climate!!.

One more thing tundebabzy, the farmers can't accuse you of inorganic produce because it is the same chemicals used in making the fertilizers they use that you always use in hydroponics. Infact, the chemicals used in hydroponics are even more purified! It will be like kettle calling pot black!!!!

agroronnie:
Hello everyone,
Am currently working on a proposal to cite a small project hydroponic greenhouse farm as close to a city as possible to reduce carriage costs. main products include tomato, peppers including scotch bonnets and capsicums. I currently have all greenhouse dimension sketches and cost estimates worked out and i believe my team and I can construct at least 5 standardized greenhouse tunnels along with a drip irrigation equipment with importing any component.
The model believes in breaking the cartel and selling direct to end users and smaller mass market retailers by building a loyalty scheme with retailers and of course at slightly cheaper prices as well as larger standardized retailers who require constant supply all year round. We intend to build pack houses and wash bay facilities in order to deliver hygienically packed fresh farm produce to the market all year round, basically we want to revolutionise the food packaging and material handling of fresh produce by packaging the same quantities that make up a basket of tomato/pepper in separate 5kg standard crates selling at cheaper unit prices/ bulk discounts.
Easier to access as the farm is cited as close to the city as possible.
The idea is to site this project in the South to make cheaper food available in Southern markets reducing sourcing food from the north and saving costs for retailers.
We sort of got torn in between citing the farm in Rivers state or Lagos state. If we choose lagos state, feasibility studies show that the farm will be best sited in a developing area perhaps Ibeju/Awoyaya axis to guarantee a "future city farm" in a few years time. However, similar ideas are short for Rivers state although there will be a mass diversion of customers from Abia, Imo, Rivers, South east and south south markets patronizing the local farm and as such would save cost of transportation to the North and reduce sourcing from the north.
Please, I would like your opinions on best location between these two places or any other as long as it is in line with the "Southern food production" concept.
And also does anyone know the estimate of how many tons/kg of tomatoes that can be produced from an acre (6 plots) of land under a greenhouse model and of course most of our capital will be geared towards acquiring an acre of farmland in the target area.
All opinions are strongly welcomed.
Thank you
Ms. Ronnie

jethro2:

Please send sms or whatsapp to get the account payment details for the Fruits and Vegetable Training.
Space will be reserved only for the first 20 intending trainee that made payments.
Please indicate female or male if accommodation will be require.
Thank you

eazuka:


@jethro2, thanks for your time and efforts in educating and encouring us about Agrobiz and specifically Tomato farming. I have been glued to my screen for the past 3 hours reading every thing from page to page. I just want to ask, while not trying to bring down the importance and quality of this training (if it isn't important, i wouldn't be commenting), isn't 1 month too long a time for this training a training?

I think maybe you need to think of other modalities of delivering this training using available modern day tools and technologies (Internet training platform or Lond Distance Video Training DVD - someone suggested this already) or create a fast track version of maybe 1 week. As a start-up business owner and also someone still on a paid job, pending the time my business have a stable base, a husband and a father, i don't see myself leaving for a class room for 1 month.

I think others who may be interested in this training may relate to few or all my point above which makes taking one full months off for the training difficult but may be able to take a week off for the training.

domack99:
Wow, what a nice thread, this is really a resource centre for anyone going into vegetable farming.

Kudus to the op, Jethro and those that make the thread lively (choiceman, povore9, jeffmyson, etc).

I have to contact you guys, I was into poultry farming in the earlier part of my career but got a job and have to move on, have like ten accres of land along lagos Ibadan expressway to play with. I have picked up interest in greenhouse farming when we visited a farm in south Africa some years back, I never new Nigerians are already picking up fast, most I heard are in Jos area.

Two months ago I re-open the case on vegetable farming, am about to order some books on the planting and diseases control, surprisingly I never stumble on this thread until today.

Unfortunately I don't have a personal backyard that I can do a pilot project, my plan is to get as much knowledge as possible, visit farms for practical experience.

Jethro, choiceman and co, I will be contacting you guys for support and consultation.

zimoni:


This is so funny.