#mindspark Many people who invest in agriculture do so for the satisfaction it brings. I have found out that investments in intellectual property are unbeatable. Other investments pay off if you can scale, but also leverage your specialist skills to stay a step ahead of the competition in the same industry. If you studied agriculture, and go into the same, you have higher chances of succeeding than those who did not. But if you studied medicine, for example, you have more chances of succeeding as a subject matter expert with limited capital input.
My experience interacting with many commercial farmers is that most winners in agriculture do so with huge government support which enables them to go large scale, by mechanizing and creating strategic leakages for quality control to tap the ready market for their produce.
Keep that in mind as you go into commercial farming.
You need cheaper capital, manpower and support in value addition. Otherwise, you will continue moving in circles. Do not be enticed by someone else’s success.
There is usually more than meets the eye.
Commercial farming is not for the faint-hearted. You need government support, I repeat. And folks who have made it have lots of it through such farmer support schemes through the Private Sector Development Foundation (PSDF) or Ministry of Finance or Uganda Development Bank or State House funding support. They take a deliberate effort to search for such opportunities and put in place an infrastructure and systems to tap into it, when available or advertised.
Better invest in exploring conditions to tap into such opportunities, leveraging the available support and then going in with a bung. Only then you have some chances. If you are already successful, it is ok to go into farming just for personal ego and feeling good.
It feels nice to look at your cows or goats or chicken etc or a farm of matooke. It gives a good feeling. The home looks and feels like a home. If you have succeeded in farming, please share your lessons. But first, tell us, how do you define success in farming?
Copyright Mustapha B Mugisa, Mr Strategy 2021. All rights reserved.
