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

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Amb Patrick says books veritable for social re-engineering … Opara-Anyiam unveils Short Stories with Morals

NaijaAgroNet 

The CEO of Meljenstin Youth Empowerment Initiative and Reviewer of the book, Ambassador Chibuzor Patrick, has said that books are a veritable tool for social reengineering and nation building, NaijaAgroNet reports.

Speaking at the unveiling of a book, Short Stories with Morals by Vivian Opara-Anyiam, at the weekend, declared that there is nothing one can do without books.

“Books are the only tool that can change this generation. Reading is a skill whereby you get information for your life to be illuminated. Knowledge is the principal thing. It comes with wisdom because a closed book is a closed life. I have essay competition in Meljenstin just to encourage reading culture. Without books no generation can stand, because in reading we find solution to our problems”, she stated.

Short Stories with Morals, she informed NaijaAgroNet, is designed to touch every aspect of our lives. “It is simple in language, unique in its own way because the book deals on: respect, honesty, kindness, impatience, obedience, humility, forgiveness, anger, conscience, jealousy, wickedness, quarelling, greed, stealing and envy among other themes and these are issues we need to deal with in our society. As the reviewer of the book I recommend it for everyone: the parents for their children, the church for their members. A life will be changed positively after reading this book”. She advised the young ones to write instead of depending on uncles which in most cases do not work. She said there is no perfect book yet. “Put down that thing you call nonsense because tomorrow it may make sense to some people some day,” she concluded.

According to the writer of the book in an exclusive interview with NaijaAgroNet, her aim of writing the book is to impact morals in the life of Nigerian youths, children and young adults who love reading literature books. “When you look around, a lot has gone wrong with our morals .This book is written to serve as a corrective measure towards this direction, it will impact morals in the life of people after reading it, you will feel the impact of what you are reading and you will learn a lot, not just moral but other aspects of life. 

She admitted to NaijaAgroNet that the first obstacle she faced as a young writer was the issue of finance. “You have good intention or inspiration but when it comes to financial aspect you have to run up and down to look for money to implement it. But I give God the glory that I did not just write the book and abandon it, God gave  me the grace I was able to publish it which is what we are about to unveil today”.

She however dropped a word of advice to other upcoming writers, “if you know that you have the gift or the inspiration to write, you can start by putting those ideas down one day you can put those ideas of yours together to form a book”, adding that by the special grace of God by the end of next year her poem collections and short plays will be out.

Cyriacus Nnaji/ GEE

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Agropreneurs in constant fund seeking marathon

NaijaAgroNet

 Majority entrepreneurs in the agro-business industry are always seeking for fund as more candidates interested in the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme (TEEP) are those interested in the agricultural sector exploration, reports NaijaAgroNet.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that the $100 million fund by the entrepreneur extraordinary, Mr. Tony Elumelu, opened its portal for registration on December 31, 2014 and has welcomed applications from over 20 countries in not more than 12 hours.

The Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme (TEEP) NaijaAgroNet reports, was designed to empower African entrepreneurs which was launched in Lagos State by thechairman of Heirs Holdings Mr Tony Elumelu.

The CEO of Tony Elumelu Foundation DrWiebe Boer, said that the top agendaof the programme is agriculture which have the power to transform Africa by creating more jobs, provide food and reduce hunger.

 “The top one is agriculture, which I think is also very interesting because if you think of where agriculture was as a sector in Africa about five years ago, it was seen as something about poverty, treachery, young people certainly won’t want anything to do about agriculture,” said Boer.

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