This week, I continue with the theme of investment opportunities and turn the focus to farming. For farming to become a profitable and sustainable business, it must not only be hard work but also smart work. Truth be told, in many parts of Uganda, farming practices have not changed much for the past 30 or 50 years.
This year, farmers in my home village lost their first season beans because of relying solely on rain fed agriculture and always planting their crop in early April. When they experienced a three weeks’ dry spell in June, it spelt doom for their crop. To farm as a business, be willing to adopt new technologies.
If any of the farmers in my village had done three things they could have realised a good harvest of beans. If any of them had opted to plant in early March as opposed to early April which is the traditional planting time; if the farmers had used drought-resistant or faster maturing seeds and if the farmers irrigated their fields, they would have got a good crop at the end of the day.
Farmers need to up their game not only with regard to planting technologies but with post-harvest handling as well. According to Food and Agricultural Organisation, the overall post-harvest food loss in Sub Saharan Africa is 37 per cent. According to World Food Programme, some sectors in Uganda experience as much as 40 per cent post-harvest food loss. It is very difficult to make a profit from a business that loses more than 30 per cent of its income time after time.
For a business to succeed, the cost of goods sold or produced should be lower than the amount of sales made. If you have a Shs 1 million a month job, you would be out of your mind to take an Uber taxi to and from work every day. But it is common to meet a city based ‘farmer’ driving a pickup truck to visit a two-acre maize ‘farm’ located over 300 kilometres away. Assuming three or four of such visits in a season, the cost of monitoring the farm will be far more than the value of the crop that will be produced.
James Abola is a speaker, author and business and money coach. Email: james.abola@akamaiglobal.co.uk