‘How I can assist farmers export their agricultural products’

Chief Executive Officer of KVAS Group, Dr Kenechukwu Nnamani, in this interview, speaks on how he intends to create an ecosystem where farmers can network and make money through exporting their products. COLLINS NNABUIFE, brings excerpts.

Tell us what your company is into.

We are into agricultural produce export from Nigeria to China and from Senegal to China as well. Basically, and more focused on the agricultural sector and we have done a lot of businesses with the Chinese moving some of our agricultural produce to China, depending on the quantity they need.

So, what we do is that we find the Chinese people that need any particular product that Nigeria has in abundance, because we have a lot in abundance. We bring them (Chinese) down to Nigeria, sometimes they set up a company, sometimes they want to start growing these products by themselves, and sometimes they would want to buy from local farmers and export to China by themselves.

What type of products have you assisted Nigerian farmers to export abroad?

We have cashew nuts, which is highly needed in China; ginger and garlic, peanuts but Nigeria has been restricted from shipping peanuts to China, while Benin Republic has the liberty to do so, and Senegal.

How would you help Nigerian farmers export their products?

The truth of the matter is that government is promoting agriculture but there is no proper system to enlighten people that it is not just about having a farm. Agribusiness is a big business, agribusiness can take any country from one level to another level, Bangladesh is doing fine, Vietnam is also doing fine, what I want to do going forward is that I am creating an ecosystem where farmers will complement each other, it will be freely accessible to anybody that is thinking agriculture in Nigeria, especially in large, scale, there are some licences that you need, there are some technics and expertise you need for you to actually set up agriculture exporting business, and that is what I want to set up, an ecosystem where, if you are a farmer and you are into cashew nuts and what you have is just 10 metric tonnes and another farmer can do 20 metric tonnes, you don’t know each other, but an importer in china may need 30 metric tonnes and what you can afford is 10 metric tonnes. So how do you know who else can give you 20 metric tonnes, because sometimes there could be conflict in the market where you are giving 10 metric tonnes at, let’s say, N1, and the other person is giving me 20 metric tonnes at N2, that means you people will never see eye ball to eye ball, the business won’t be successful.

So, this ecosystem brings people under one roof that it becomes a movement, if we have a particular number of people who have products ready for shipment, we get the Chinese buyer in, not just Chinese, are looking at expanding to other countries that actually take these things in large quantity; we send out the news to them, when they come, they come to the ecosystem to get these products once, it makes it easy, and encourages farmers. But in as much as we want to export, Nigerian population can consume what we produce, but the problem is that people still import . So, the only option to finish what we have is to export, the policy has made it difficult for us to consume more of what we produce, the only option is to have an ecosystem that will make people move their products out of Nigeria and this is what I am planning to set up now.

What mechanism are you putting in place to ensure that farmers produce of export standard?

I will spread out news, I will spread out training for free for people with full evidence of growing a particular crop. Right now, I just have an office in Abuja, and I have training room, I have already done free training for a lot of people, we will set up an online platform that will be able to reach out to every other person around Nigeria. It will be well created, you will get to know all you need to make your produce get up to standard, this is the easiest way. I am running this free because at the end of the day, if you are able to create this ecosystem, you can have benefits from it.

There are so many people that have lands but they don’t have money to pay for training, so I don’t want you to pay me to tell you what you need to know, I can make that information accessible to you as a document and make it accessible to you as an audio or as a video and give it to you free, all you need to do is abide by the standard that am teaching you and afterward, I can help you take those produce out of Nigeria.

Do you work with Nigerian agencies who regulate exportation of agricultural produce?

Basically, I don’t want to work in direct relationship with any agency in Nigeria because it makes at times, the private sector inefficient. You don’t need to work with these agencies for these things to start happening.

Are you planning to set up your own farm so that you get these produce directly from there?

We all have our own areas of expertise,which makes us perform well; I will prefer to create an ecosystem that brings farmers together, even if I set up a farm, itmay not meet world standard and it will distract me because I will be more focused on selling my produce than accommodating every other farmer. The idea is the same poverty alleviation that government talks about and the easiest way is through farming and export. Any farmer that has a produce of only $500 in his farm can earn $500 cash without having a big farm, because the person is a member of an ecosystem that can add their small quantity to another quantity which makes it a big quantity. I don’t think I will have interest to set up my own farm.

What is your specific message to farmers out there?

The only thing I will tell them is that I am here to offer something that is worth more than money to them, it’s a generational change because what motivates me to do things free of charge for people is the number of calls I receive every single day for loans of ridiculous amounts of money. These people are not lazy, these people have access to work, they have produce, but they don’t have access to export, and the market in Nigeria is also competitive. So, I am looking for a way I can empower people with my knowledge, I may not have the finances to give to every person that calls me for money, but I have a message for them, that is what I am trying to achieve here, give them that information that will turn everything around for the better,