Agro commodity: A money spinning machine

Honestly, if you don't have "one big well of money" or sponsor or partners that can help you pull through with the orders, you will surely be frustrated at the end of it all.

This business is a very lucrative system that serves as a means where middle men make money with calculated risks, yes this is true. Calculated risks; there are lots of risks associated with this business but with proper planning and right calculation and a lot of eye shining you can escape them.

In Nigeria, some of the main agricultural products are:

Food Crops; maize, beans, soybeans, millet, rice, palm oil, groundnut etc.
Livestock; cattle, sheep, goat, chicken, pork etc
Industrial crops; basically cash crops, cocoa, cassava, cashew, yam, rubber.

It's not a business you can just rush into, else you will rush out of it and not only will you rush out of it and not only will you rush out, you will lose a lot of money if care is not taken.

There are different ways you can function in the agro trade business and they are:

Intrastate trading

This is whereby the trader goes to rural areas to source for these products and resell them in the urban society.

Interstate trading

This is a little bit more advanced than the first, you will have to do some research about the products that are lacking in some particular states before you can decide to trade that product there. Examples are, trading of palm oil, in the northern States of Nigeria, trading of tomato and onions in the Western and Eastern States of Nigeria.

Local purchase order (LPO)

This is a system when you have a contractual agreement with a particular company or organization to be their major supplier, for example by supplying Cassava to a company that manufactures ethanol or groundnut to companies that produce Groundnut oil or supplying maize to feed millers. This time around you work on their specifications, they give you the details of the product they want and you provide them with samples and then proceed to source for huge deliveries.

Exportation

This part is a very lucrative one but can be very dicey, this is you exporting some farm produce outside Nigeria for industrial use in another country, for example Ginger, Cashew, Cocoa etc. But you have to get registered and get a license to operate.

You can decide to go into these businesses if you have the capital and not just the capital, you need the knowledge, in fact the knowledge about it, is the most important and you can also partner with any reputable company, community or individual that is into this business.