DIARIES OF A SMALL SCALE FARMER

By David Kabani

Dear diary

Dear diary 2017 has come to an end and 2018 is upon us, what does this mean for a farmer like you and me? This is the time to go to the drawing board and make evaluations, as you make resolutions for this year, you need to spend some time and make sure that you do an audit of the previous year. Celebrate the achievements of 2017 and learn from the failures as well.

Dear farmer let me start this year by dropping you these two important factors which if followed religiously have the potential to reward you positively.

(1)  Quality

Dear farmer, everyone rich or poor looks for good and quality products. I say this because that’s what I look for whenever I walk into any shop. If I want to buy chickens I look for fresh tasty chickens, be it vegetables, beef, or any products we look for quality. A farmer like you and me above all needs to put much effort and time in making sure that we produce quality products. Too many times, most farmers concentrate on the money they will make at the end of the farming cycle and forget that its quality that will bring more money. Dear farmer by the time you reach Soweto or any market within your reach with your low grade tomatoes you will learn the hard way when your box only fetches a 30kwacha while those with high grade products walk away with a 70 kwacha a box. In your community where everyone is growing broilers and the prices are homogenous, its only quality that will compel people to keep buying from you.

Dear diary, regardless of where you are and what you produce, if you just spend more time ,more money, more effort in making sure that you produce good quality cabbages, chickens ,tomatoes, eggs and that’s where the magic lies. It’s not just about producing, but it’s about how you produce what you are producing.

Dear diary, quality is what makes a difference. Nollywood in Nigeria on average produces 200 movies annually with a turnover of 6 million dollars put together while Hollywood in USA will produce a single movie over a period of two years and still yield 2 billion dollar from that single movie.

Quality dear farmer and only quality, will push to the top.

(2)  Quantity

Dear diary, farming is a game of quality and quantity. After improving on the quality, the next best thing to do is to increase on the quantity, big quantities give you a leverage to price your produce at a competitive price and still enjoy the economies of scale.

Take for instance  farmer A who produces 5,000 chickens every month, feeding these birds will cost 80,000,administrative, overhead and all costs attached will cost 20,000, buying of day old chicks will cost 27,500 all these put together will cost him k127,500.Because of the quantity he has he can sell his birds at k30 and still make ak22,500 every 35 days. because of his competitive price he is able to sell all his chickens within 5 days, this will allow him/her to start the cycle in record time.

On the other hand farmer B who only grows 50 birds per cycle in order to make profit he has to sell his chickens at k40,and this price while force him or her to sell to friends and family, the disadvantage with these kind of customers they only buy on credit as if that’s not enough it will take three weeks to sell everything meaning the farmer has to continue feeding the birds or refrigerate them which compromises on the quality.

Dear farmer the same applies in everything, to drive your pickup truck to Soweto with 20 boxes will still cost you the same amount if you filled it with a 100 boxes.

It’s true that you should start small, but it should only be for the purpose of learning, the moment you have the capacity to grow big, do it.

NOTE: I am not despising small beginnings, they are good if anything when you go down the memory lane you will find one episode that talks about small beginnings.

‍