THE PRETTY FEMALE FARMER

Did I hear you say, this blogger seems to be a feminist. Guess you are 90 percent right. Sometimes I sit down at a corner in my room and wonder how these perceived fragile being prosper in their homes and profession. Delicate, yet dynamic and industrious.

This brings me to a pretty young farmer on this part of the world, who has established herself as a success in Agro-business - Mosunmola Cynthia Umoru

 

A 2004 graduate of Zoology from the Lagos State University (LASU). An Ashoka fellow. Alumnus of the U.S Department of States International Leadership Programme, and Pan African University under the Enterprise Development Center. Mosunmola is passionate about food, farming, youth’s development and community development.

She registered her company in 2004 when she was in her final year in the university. Honeysuckles PTL Ventures with the primary aim of selling processed food produces was launched to serve food retail chains in the country, when the fast food restaurant industry was emerging in Nigeria.

The first major business her company did was to supply chicken, snails and catfish for some branches of Tantilizers. This business opportunity came when her father tried to get her a paid job. Reluctantly, she went to see the procurement manager for Tantilizers – Her father’s friend and rather than get interviewed for a job, she got a business offer based on her experience in procurement. Though 25years at this time, Motunrayo took the challenge to become a vendor for Tantilizers.

As months passed, she had more outlets to supply and had to borrow money from family and friends to meet the ever increasing demand. By age 27, Motunrayo already owed twenty seven million naira (27m). An equivalent of 1million naira (1m) for every year she had lived. Did you just say, “Oh my God.”

It was during this challenging time, she came across a Goldman Sachs programme sponsoring 10,000 women in business. It was after this programme, Goldman Sach sponsored an article on Motunrayo Cynthia Umoru (aka Pretty Farmer) in in-flight magazine of an American airline. This singular event gave her the push that led to stardom. Soon, she won ‘The Future Nigeria Project Awards in 2009.

As years ran by, scarcity and low quality of farm produce she source for her different clients led her to venture into full time farming. Though started with a 4-Acre leasehold farm, Honeysuckles PTL ventures recently settled into a 25 Hectares (approximately 62.5 acres) property in Ogun State. This will not only increase the production of farm produce for consumption by Nigerians but provide more employment opportunities for the ever increasing unemployed youths. However her new company Harvesters Farm Limited acquired 3000 hectares of land in Osun State for its expansion.

Pretty farmer’s aim is to make farming a glamorous and cool profession to be cherished by all.

Some other achievements, awards and recognition attributed to Mosunmola Cynthia Umoru (alias Pretty Farmer) are listed as follows;

·         Founder, ABIRA Agribusiness Support Initiative

·         Consultant to African Union in 2011 on Youth Development

·         Participated in a book review on Africa Development at the World Bank in 2011.

·         African Union 2011 West African Youth representative

·         Owner, Farmshoppe

·         ELOY recognition Award in association with UBA for Entrepreneur role in the Agricultural Sector 2013

·         Youth representative at the National conference (CONFAB) at Abuja in 2013.

·         Member of the Catfish Farmers Association of Nigeria,

·         An affiliate member of Poultry Farmers Association of Nigeria

·         Member of Lagos State Catfish Farmers Association of Nigeria.

Mosunmola Umoru with Former minister of Agriculture, Mr Akinwunmi Adesina

CREDIT: www.woman.ng, www.girlyessentials.com.ng, www.bellanaija.com, businessdayonline.com, demo.afuyemedia.com, The Fountain magazine

FARMING: THE SPRINGBOARD FOR NIGERIA'S DEVELOPMENT

Nigeria is endowed with abundant resources (agricultural resources inclusive) yet the agricultural sector has suffered neglect, and this can be traced to a decline that began with the advent of petroleum boom in the early 1970s.

This distortion produced adverse effects on our agricultural products production level. Before now, government used to pay farmers low prices on food for the domestic market in order to satisfy urban demands for cheap basic food products. This policy made agricultural work unattractive, and as food production could not keep pace with its increasing population, Nigeria began to import food. It has also lost its status as a net exporter of such cash crops as cocoa, palm oil, and groundnuts. 

In past years, the federal government has consistently created policies to revive the agricultural sector but the poor implementation of these policies and programme designs as become a distress factor for the growth and development of the Nigerian agricultural sector. For instance, the trend in the share of agriculture in the GDP shows a substantial variation and long-term decline from 60% in the early 1960s through 48.8% in the 1970s and 22.2% in the 1980s.

However, the Nigerian economy has continued to grow rapidly in recent years despite the persistent structural weaknesses, with growth concentrated primarily in trade, agriculture, and telecommunications. In 2013 Nigeria’s agricultural sector contributed an estimated 22 percent of GDP, the oil and gas sector 14 percent, the telecom sector 9 percent, and the manufacturing sector 7%. Overall, services including telecommunications, finance, and construction, contributed 52 percent of our GDP. 

The agricultural sector in Nigeria sustains over 80 percent of rural households; and the government is working to expand private agro-businesses access to finance, relieve farm-to-market transport infrastructure constraints, and increase the use of irrigation and improved seed varieties.

A strong and efficient agricultural sector would enable NIGERIA to feed its  growing population,  generate  employment,  earn  foreign  exchange  and  provide  raw  materials  for industries. The agricultural sector has a multiplier effect on any nation’s socio-economic and industrial fabric because of the multi-functional nature of agriculture. At such, the agricultural sector has the potential to be the industrial and economic springboard from which Nigeria’s development can take off. Largely because it’s primary role is to provide food and manpower to the expanding industrial economy. Indeed, more often than  not,  agricultural  activities  are  usually  concentrated  in  the  less-developed  rural  areas where  there  is  a critical  need  for  rural transformation,  redistribution,  poverty  alleviation  and socio-economic development.

In recent years, Nigeria’s food import bill declined from N1.1 trillion in 2009 to N634 billion in 2013 and continues to decline; the number of seed companies in Nigeria has increased from 11 to 134 within the past three years, allowing farmers to be reached with high quality seeds. The volume of seeds available to farmers has increased from 4,252Metric tons in 2011 to over 149,484metric tonnes today; and the number of integrated rice mills has increased to 24 today.

The profitability of any nation’s resource depends on the importance attached to it. According to Mr Adesina (Ex – Agriculture minister), “the change we need as a nation is a shift in mindset. Agriculture is been looked at as a developmental activity – A social responsibility to develop the rural areas. Wrong! Agriculture is a business. Seed production is a business; fertilizer production is a business, the storage facility as well as the logistics and transport.”

Nigeria has great potential to become the food basket of the West African Sub-region given that she is endowed with huge expanse of arable land, beneficial climate, abundant streams, lakes, forest and grassland, as well as large, active population that can sustain a highly productive agriculture system.

The future of Nigeria lies in harnessing her resources, and agriculture is paramount. With agriculture, we can stop hunger within and outside of our borders, provide food for neighboring countries, engage our youths with meaningful employment opportunities, make money and save for investment purpose. There is no limit to the benefits agriculture can give.

Credit: Daily Independent Nigeria, National Bureau of Statistics, nationsencyclopedia.com, eujournal.org, ajol.info, forbes.com, US Department of States

A FACE-LIFT TO SOCIETAL MENACE

 From recent reports, over 10.5 million Nigerian school-age children are out of school, with the large number of these children coming from the North. Majority of these out-of-school children in the North are the Almajiris, commonly found on the streets and highways, begging for alms and food.

The Nigerian federal government has often come up with ways to deal with the menace and future threat to democracy and our society. Unlike other government who scrap laid down development programmes, kudos to the current government which has decided to build on what the previous government had started by increasing the momentum of the development programmes created to take away this unappealing situation.

Though, the government of former president, Goodluck Jonathan built 125 Almajiri Model Schools in 13 states of the North through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETF) and Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) to help get these kids off the streets and deal with the menace of Almajiri phenomenon in the Northern region, the newly elected government of Buhari has made a more decisive development decision to enforce the integrate of the elements of basic education into the Quranic school system, where pupils are imparted with knowledge and skills beyond Quranic recitation via the Tsangaya Model Schools. 

The new name “Tsangaya” unlike “Almajiri”, in my own opinion will bleach our thoughts of what people perceive the children to be.

According to Mr David Apeh - the Public Relations Officer of UBEC, in a recent press release, this intervention programme will enable these children to integrate effectively into the Federal Government’s Universal Basic Education programme by bridging the gap between Islamic and Western education in the region.

This is a quiet revolution, we should be proud of. It will change the perspective of the world concerning children in the North and Nigeria as a whole.

Tsangaya Model School (Boarding)

Credit: The Punch Newspaper, mjemagazine.com, thewillnigeria.com, Lindaikeja, gamji.com, 

A $300MILLION SMART MALL IN ABA CITY

In this part of the world, the mere mention of dollar get our ears tingling. A $300million dollar investment in Aba City (Not Lagos or Abuja) gets the ordinary Nigerian eyes popping.

Aba city is known as a strategic trading hub in the Southern part of Nigeria. Paul Obanua, CEO of Greenfield Asset management has been able to tap into this potential by building Aba Mega mall.

The mall which has world class features (like a 10MW Power Supply, Cinema, Hotel, Online Mall and Recreational facilities) is surrounded by States like Abia, Imo, Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Bayelsa, and Delta. Cameroun is also a neighbour country.

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