Specialization is Key in Business.

Agricultureas a business is an important engine of growth and poverty reduction. Women,young and old alike, make essential contributions to the agricultural sector inrural economies in all developing countries as their roles vary considerablybetween and within religions which are also changing with time.

Mrs.Nkolola Halwiindi is a woman in agriculture as well as the founder and director of Conka women in agro business. They are a group of people who have come together to share a common goal and interest about farming as they are also known to be into dairy farming as a business, hot culture, vegetable farming as well as growing Bananas as their major focus.    

They are a group of people who deal in seasonal farming like that of soya beans as well as maize mainly for feeding the animals. When starting up a farming business, Mrs. Nkolola first started by advising on getting a good piece of land and knowing the type of agricultural practices that one wishes to have.  

“You need basic infrastructure like water and electricity which are crucial elements that you need to start up a farm. Although there are other agribusinesses that don’t necessarily need electricity like those in fish-farming” she said.

Before starting out as a farmer, she undertook the task of doing a lot of research to know more about the agribusiness background. She explained that they where in the diaspora for about 15 years in which they lived in south Africa then later came to reside in Zambia with an aim of getting into a business of any kind that they had not ventured in before with a mindset of still being in cooperate world.      

Through visiting dairy farms and many other agricultural practices, and through that, she gathered enough information and began to get inspired by the business practices around farming as a business.

Looking at their major focus, which is Banana farming, she told Agricoop newspaper that growing bananas is easy as they manly require a lot of water, not too much fertilizer simply because the climate for Bananas here in Zambia is conducive to Bananas.

Interms of land preparation, she explained that they don’t need excess capital investment expect that people have to wait for about 12 to 15 months before harvesting and a lot of small scale farmers do not have such kind of money and time to grow Bananas.

“We tried a lot of things before we settled on Banana agriculture. Although dairy was the first option, we looked at the market, we looked at what’s trending but in terms of specialization, we decided to settle on bananas simply because there is a market demand and the buyers come to your farm as you don’t spend on transport taking to the Bananas to your clients.” Mrs. Nkolola said.

Farming Bananas is different from tomato growing where as farmer a farmer has to take their farm produce to the market and there’s a middle man but for banana business, you sale the fruit directly to the retailers and the end users buy from the retailer which is to the farmers advantage as they do not have any extra costs of transportation or hiring a middleman to take care of the transactions.

During winter, the plant gets to become stressed from the cold and when it comes to pastes and diseases, there are little challenges although there are certain diseases that can wipe out the entire plantation field if not properly handled.

Generally, once a person does a banana manufacturing plant, the capital for a small scale farmer is a big challenge as financing as the interest rates have been seen to be extremely high for a small scale to medium scale farmer.

“When there’s a drought, you need to constantly water your crops other wise you’ll lose what you invest in. when we plant, we are always hopeful that it will rain., we buy in feed, we buy fertilizer and spend a lot of money on diesel, you plant your sacks and spend a lot of money on weed then, No rain” she said.

Another challenge that was brought up is that most small scale farmers do not insure their crops in preparation of any sort of natural calamities that might affect the crops.

“Last year we lost about 12 pregnant diary animals and dairy animals do not come at a cheap cost. It is very painful to lose an animal mostly at a stage where you should start milking hence you lose the animal and all the money you had invested in that animal.” She explained.

People lack sensitization about the animals and crop insurance hence risking their investment. However as time goes by, Mrs. Nkololo wishes to have a banana powder manufacturing machine.

“We will work very hard for this project, we will apply for loans and grants and our dream is to have this manufacturing machine as it will be the first of its kind, here in Zambia.” She said.

However, she concluded by giving small scale farmers advice of reducing post harvest loses, having to do proper market research before engaging in any kind of agribusiness, being consistent and considering investing in value addition.  

“As small scale farmers, we need to stop the basic ways of doing agriculture. We must bethinking of mechanized way of weeding our fields, irrigating our crops, milking our diary and why should we still be milking with our bare hands when we can get a potable milkier. We must start thinking big and agriculture must be a business.” Mrs. Nkololo said.