17,000 HECTARES ORGANIC SOYBEAN &

SESAME FARMING PROJECT. YOBE 2019

BUSINESS CASEA PROJECT BY DHARUL HIJRAH

LIMITED FARM PLANNING AND PROJECT

MANAGEMENT BY FARMSMARTNG

Table of Contents

1. Introduction2. Objectives3. Vision4. Certification5. Services and Work Organisation

Planning6. Stakeholders7. Crops8. Seeds9. Site Selection

10. Farmer’s Recruitment11. Extension Service Provision12. FarmSmartng Agency13. Input Provision14. Logistics Planning/ Management15. Farmer Labour Payment Plan16. Security

17. Cost Projections

18. Revenue Projections

19. Processing and Packaging

20. Marketing Plan

INTRODUCTION

This project is proposed by Dharul Hijrah Ltd. It is a Public-Private Partnership led by the Yobe State Government and various stakeholders within the Organic Agriculture production, processing and marketing value chains in Nigeria.The Yobe State Government shall among other things:1. Provide land for the artisan farmer.2. Assist Farmers in collaboration with Dharul Hijrah Limited to secure

anchor borrower loans.

INTRODUCTION Cont.

3. A private marketing company with shareholding from the state will offtake the farm produce at harvest time from the farmers. They will take out the loan portion from the sales and pay off the loan, and will remit the balance to the farmers.

4. The Yobe State government through the Farm Transact platform in partnership with FarmSmartNG will market the processed produce/ products to the International market.

Vision

To be the largest and most reliable facilitators, and aggregators of Organic Agricultural projects and produce in Nigeria. To create a platform for profitable agricultural ventures for all comers and be the most viable source for highest quality seeds and input. We hope to build a framework that brings proper agronomy extension support to all involved and to partner with logistic service providers

Objectives

We will organize all stakeholders in the value chain and offer a standardized platform for commercial production, processing and marketing of High graded and certified Organically grown crops, fruits and vegetables. To comply with all certification rules and maintain provenance data for every batch during production and processing. The produce will be marketed at premium pricing and in the best condition.

CERTIFICATION

Dharul Hijrah Limited are the makers and distributors of Kalli Organic Fertilizers. Kalli Fertilizer is already certified for organic use under the USAD guide lines by OMRI of the United States of America. This certification is internationally recognised and will enable us market the produce grown with Kalli Organic Fertilizers in the best organic produce outlets and attract premium pricing worldwide.

Services and Work Organisation Planning

These include the following:

1. Input manufacturing and provision. 2. Organic seed multiplication. 3. Land preparation services. 4. Other mechanical services. 5.Transport and Logistics. 6. Post Harvest Services (i.e Threshers, Winnowers and graders.)

STAKEHOLDERSThe stakeholders for this project include the following; 1. Farmers 2. State Government 3.Local Government Councils 4. Input Providers 5. Monitoring and Evaluation Unit 6. Extension Service7.. Logistics Providers 8. Processors and Packagers 9.Sorters and Graders

10.Collateral Managers/Storage. The nomenclature of the stakeholders might change as the project progresses to accommodate new needs. For example there might be a need to include Land-Owners in a situation where the State or Local Government Councils are not able to provide the required sizes of land for the project.

CROPS

The project intends to bring together farmers from the 17 Local Government Areas of Yobe State, in order to have a standardised production of Sesame and Soybeans using intercropping farming practices. A team of Agronomists from the Extension Service Department of the Institute of Agriculture Research Zaria will plan the cultivation of the crops and come up with a cropping calendar and a package of services for each site. These would be digitized and would be used for coordinated project management through digital assisted Extension service mobile services of agents on the FarmSmartng platform.

SEEDS

The seeds will be procured from reliable sources, and must either be foundation or 1st generation fortified organic seedlings. This should give the plants a good start and a low seed loss ratio. The best variety per site would be chosen with the purpose of growing a healthy plant and to obtain the maximum yield possible.

SITE SELECTION

We are working with the State and Local Government authorities to identify suitable and fertile land in clusters of not less than 250 hectares for a total of 1,000 hectares per Local Government Area. The priority is 1. Fertility 2. Accessibility 3. Security and 4. Access to Farm hands/ Labour.

FARMERS RECRUITMENTWe will work with different tiers of farmers on the projects in each local government. These tiers are as follows: 1. Land Owners with more than 10 hectares of land that suit the criteria of (site selection) above.

2. Career farmers who would take up 5 hectares each of farmland, to work on their assigned portions as designated Farmer Managers. They shall be responsible for organising farm hands and labour, and supplying information to the FarmSmartng agents to update farm records. They will be the contact points for input distribution and harvest collection. Hence they would be directly responsible for the security of the farms and application and use of inputs.

3. Artisan/ Temp Farmers would be assigned 1 or 2 hectares of land accordingly to manage. This category would work in groups of 10 under a more established farmer/ Agricultural supervisor. They shall be appraised and bear the same responsibilities as the career farmers but on a smaller scale. This category could be youths and other unemployed members of the community.

FARMERS RECRUITMENT Cont.

EXTENSION SERVICE

Extension service will be provided by Professional extension personnel who would be coordinated by the Extension Service department of the Institute for Agricultural Research Zaria. All extension materials would be converted to pamphlets and digital video, and distributed via all the Farmsmartng Centres that would be set up in all the clusters. The FarmSmartng agents would offer digitally assisted Extension services as the projects are executed.

FARMSMART AGENCY

The FarmSmartng Agency is made up of trained agents who use mobile devices powered by the Farmsmart platform to work directly with farmers. The agents are usually school leavers who are recruited from the communities they are to work in. They act as the interface between our clients and the farmers. Digital tools the agents work with include a. Farm/ Farmer registration portals b. Digital Farm Mappers c. Digital Farm Records d. Inventory trackers e. Logistics trackers and planners and other tools.

The FarmSmartng platform is customized for every project to suit its needs and to offer a viable Monitoring and Evaluation platform which can be seen in real time. The platform was built on the cloud technology and all the tools can be used in offline mode except when receiving or uploading information from and to the FarmSmartng Platform.

FARMSMART AGENCY Cont.

All stakeholders are connected to the platform via dashboards that contain actionable insights and indicators on the status of the projects at any given time.

INPUT PROVISION

Dharul Hijrah Limited will be in charge of all input provision. We will also coordinate any other sub-contracted input providers. Input levels/ locations and Economic Order Quantities shall be tracked on the Farmsmartng Platform. There would be a receiving bay (most preferably a safe warehouse) at every cluster with a logistics officer who would keep records of all supplies and distributions.

EQUIPMENT AND IMPLEMENTS LEASING PLAN

All equipment that are to be used on this project will be centrally sourced and deployed. Our equipment lease partners Traxi Continental Limited would coordinate the dispatch and deployment of all tractors to the various clusters. Payment for the lease shall be verified through the FarmSmartng tracking map so that only registered farmlands whose coordinates we have in our project files are invoiced. Owners of tractors and equipment from the participating communities who would want to partake in the project will have to be registered and also tracked. This is to ensure that only exact land sizes that are worked on are invoiced.

Logistics Planning and Management

All logistics and inventory will be located and planned in accordance to the schedule of the project. The initial planning will pan out from what is calculated in the Economics of Production templates. Requisition orders would be made and filled. These must match with dispatch orders.All inventory must be accounted for. By default all issues with inventory would be immediately highlighted so that they could be dealt with immediately.

Farmer Labour Payment Plan

Labour payments should be validated and paid out within 24 hours of rendering the service. All claims must be backed by location tagged pictures and approved for payment by the designated hectare FarmSmartng agent assigned to the farmer who is to be paid. We will make use of the mobile money platform by available banks in the area to expedite action on payments and to make them secure.

SecurityWe will liaise with the security forces to enable us get patrol teams that could cover the cluster areas throughout the duration of the projects. The Police force and the Civil Defence would be the most preferred services. In addition to security, they would keep the peace and ensure there is harmony among all the stakeholders.

Cost Projections

Cost Projections Cont. (1)

Cost Projections Cont. (2)

Harvest Plan

We will have 24 hours security as the date of harvest approaches. There will be primary harvest collection centres and all collections would be tagged with the plot I.D the harvest was collected from. All yield shall be recorded in the farm records and can be a basis for credit scoring of the farmers to be used for future projects and interventions.

Processing and Packaging

Each cluster shall have a sorting and grading centre. This will be required as a step to pre-processing and adding value to harvested produce. This project intends to expand in scope in its next cycle to include planned processing centres built to target absorption of all harvested produce in a clusters’ vicinity. World class branding and marketing consultants will bring a lot of value into the designs of our packages. We are heading for a premium market segment, therefore we shall ensure that the quality of the processed foods and packaging is of international standard.We will partner with NAFDAC and SON to have offices at each of our processing and packaging centres to effect standardisation of every batch of products.

Marketing PlanThe marketing plan takes three main approaches. These are 1. The Export sales, 2. The Wholesale market and the 3. Retail market.The Export market will target the packaging and export sales of the Grade 1 portion of the produce. We intend to add value by ensuring that Threshing and Winnowing are done well. The sorting and grading will be done in accordance to laid down standards, rules and procedures. This will also be according to the standards set by EcoCert.

Contact: +234-8039795220, +234-7083857515Email: info@farmsmartng.comWebsite: www.farmsmartng.com/yobeproject

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