Smallholder farmers need agribusiness skills to succeed–Nnaemego

NaijaAgroNet:

 

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO)/Founder, Fresh Young Brain Development Initiative, Barr.Nkiruka Nnaemego, has said rural women and smallholder farmers need agribusiness skills and transformative leadership to succeed in the sector, NaijaAgroNet reports.

Nnaemego who was speaking at the Rural Women Farmers Forum (RWFF) General Assembly held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, said leadership is a process of directing and influencing another individual or group of individuals to accomplish a goal;an art and ability of inspiring, guiding, and directing people so that they ardently desire to do what the leader wishes.

NaijaAgroNet also reports that the training was organised to help women and smallholder farmers have access to additional skills and knowledge to enable them to move from a 'farm' to a'firm (business)’.

Nnaemego enumerated ways to build good customer relation in agribusiness to include keeping customers details (names, phone numbers and other relevant information), which would help for easy contact of clients especially when “you’ve not seen them for a while.”

Listening, she said, is just as important as telling, stressing the importance of talking with your clients often that apart from business purpose, the farmer should build informal relationship by calling them often to show them “you care.”

NaijaAgroNet also reports that Nnaemego encouraged farmers to set and manage realistic expectations,adding that as much as customers want their problems to be fixed, farmers should try as much as possible not to disappoint them.

“It is better to always be truthful and realistic than disappointing them,” she cautioned, pointing out that reward is a very simple form of saying 'thank you.' This could be verbally or in action through discounts or free products.

On customer segmentation, she said, the farmer could group customers according to their common needs, common behaviours or other  afford them to answer the question:Are they willing to pay for your product or service?Who are they?  Are they old, young, and from where, rural or urban?

Customer relationship, she told the women farmers, is a way an agropreneur communicates and deals with existing and future customers in other to retain and gain more client, solidify relation with existing ones and loyalty which increases profitability.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE

 ... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology