Clustered farming: Company assures investors

The Director, public and clients relations, Integrated Clustered Farmers Investments Limited (ICFIL), Mr. Olajuyigbe Mike Olutayo has assured interested investors in clustered farming not to entertain any fear saying that the company is so structured in such a way to checkmate any losses characterised with primitive practices in agriculture.

Mr. Olajuyigbe Olutayo said this during questions and answers session of the business meeting organised by it for who would be investors at Reiz Continental Hotel Abuja last week.

Olutayo said the company is out to do farming and other activities along the value chains of agriculture differently from our old traditional ways that is causing us huge wastages and losses against profitable business venture the sector supposed to portend to investors.

He said what really informed ICFIL is to checkmate the activities of very few cartels that have dominated market space of the sector thereby making agricultural produce very difficult for new comers to export and sell, stressed that clustered farming would enable investors to pull resources together for substantial investment like being able to attract loans from commercial banks and taking insurance cover against any eventuality.   

The director said the company is not taking any dole from anybody other than the investment cost on which ever value chain he or she chooses to invest, while the profit sharing would be 70-30% respectively between the investors and the ICFIL, the business manager.

According to him ‘’ our company is made up of people with proven characters from the chairman to the other directors whose characters are unquestionable and also have the burden of the sector in their hearts for the purpose of economic diversification to better living through sustainable life investment people can embark upon in farming, processing and marketing depending on the area one wishes to invest’’

The company he said is working in partnership with QUADRO PACK of Netherlands, a specialised company in the production of processing and storing equipments for more premium agricultural produce for both local and international markets with best agronomics practices adding that Nigeria Export-Import Bank (NEXIM) and Lead Ways Insurance are also partners for the purpose of loans and insurance cover against agricultural risks.

Mr. Andre Schaap, the CEO, Quadro from Netherlands stressed the need for Nigerians to harness the market opportunities in the Europe, China and America through standardization of their agricultural produce with right equipments for processing and storage for better pricing and acceptability of crops like cashew, potato, onions and tomatoes.

>Schaap responding to a question on proactive utility of processing equipment for cashew that is annually produced in Nigeria said his company would be ready to assist in ensuring availability of improved seeds with best agronomics practises with wastages prevention through galvanised storage system that would enhance the round the year activities of the equipment.

Also, the ICFIL agronomist expert, Pastor Oluwasegun Taiwo in his presentation expressed that the company will harness potential in clustered farming concept to create sustainable jobs for African youths, saying that just a value chain of one agricultural produce can generate more than 50,000 jobs for a country.

Taiwo said the company is already making frantic effort to get land for the cultivations of cassava, coconut, ginger, rice, onions and tomatoes, adding that all the value chains of our food system would be inclusive in the execution of the ICFIL mandate to make agriculture a profitable business for investors.

He said that ‘’ we want to intensify on value addition to maximise opportunities and checkmate wastages on perishable like tomatoes, potatoes and unions. In cassava business, we want to process cassava into gari, starch, liquid starch and other derivative of cassava composite for flour in bread’’

Another partner, Stichting Nigeria Trade centre (NTC) from Netherlands, Mr. Jonathan Mgbejume expatiated on why Nigeria should take storage and best agronomics practices of agricultural production very serious against wastages running to billions of naira and maximise yield using the case study of farmers’ experience in Kebbi as an example.

He pointed that best agronomics practices of onions cultivation in Netherlands produces 88 tons per hectare as against the low yield in Nigeria coupled our poor way of harvesting that always result to huge losses when stored, adding that the country lost 60% of our produce into last year Covid-19 disease.

Mgbejume pointed that while Netherlands onions can still be virile for six months due to dryness, Our own cannot because the harvest method would have exposed them to serious wounds thereby making us to incur a very huge loss running to billions of Naira.