Plantain Plantation Basics

What is a Plantain?
 
Plantains are a member of the banana family. They are a starchy, low in sugar variety that is cooked before serving as it is unsuitable raw.
Unlike starting other tree farms, starting a plantain farm and growing plantain are easier and less complicated.
Although growing plantain still requires ones attention, the level of skill required is not as intensive as other trees.
Here are a few guidelines in growing plantain and starting a plantain farm.

Step 1. LAND PROCUREMENT.
The first thing to consider in starting a plantain farm is looking for the right climate. Plantain cannot thrive in an environment that is too hot or too cold. The proposed land/soil for your plantain farm must be a well drain land that is rich and naturally fertilized but If such is not available, you can create compost and add chicken manure to your existing land.
Now that you have the land what next?

Step 2. LAND CLEARING.

The next thing after land procurement is land clearing:
Land clearing is the process of removing trees, stumps, brush, stones and other obstacles from an area as required to increase the size of the crop producing land base of an existing farm or to provide land for a new farm operation.
You can do manual or mechanized land clearing depending on the size of the proposed plantain farm

Step 3; LAND PREPARATION.

When establishing a new plantain farm, certain actions need to be implemented to ensure the long term success of the plantation. One of these actions involve the initial land preparation which should be done prior to transplanting of the plant material suckers.
The purpose of land preparation is to provide the necessary soil conditions which will enhance the successful establishment of the young suckers.
Considering the nature of plantain one can not “save” on this operation and hope for long term of the plantation.
The aim is to enable the planter to plan and structure the implementation process in advance, ensuring the successful establishment of the plantain farm. Planning forms part of the initial preparation and will help to limiting unnecessary stoppages during the implementation phase.

Critical factors to consider during this planning exercise are summarised as follows:
– Availability and quality of irrigation water;
– Field selection;
– Mechanical actions to be implemented;
– Chemical needs for pre-plant soil improvement;
– Tools and equipment needed for plantain cultivation;
– Labour needs;
– Irrigation design and installation;
– Leaching schedule;
– Hole preparation;
– Financial requirements and
– Time schedule.

Step 4; PLANTAIN SUCKER PROCUREMENT.

Plantains are vegetatively propagated, most often from suckers (shoots that grow from a bud at the base of the plant) or from corms (underground bulbs known as rhizomes). The use of whole corms is very laborious so it is more common to grow from small pieces of corm.
Please note: There are three different types of plantain suckers which are produced by the mother plant namely; maidenheads, sword suckers and water suckers.
Maidenheads have a large pseudostem which does not produce fruit.
Sword suckers have a narrow base, short pseudostem and narrow, blade-like leaves. They produce healthy, fruitful pseudostems when they mature Water suckers have short pseudostems and broad leaves.
Water suckers are not strongly attached to the rhizome and generally produce weaker plants and less fruit. Maidenheads and large sword suckers are preferred over water suckers.
You need to buy your suckers from reputable farm. There is no stable price for suckers, you can get conventional sucker between N50-N100 and hybrid between N120-N200 depending on your source.

Step 5; PLANTING.

If you are planting for fruit production it should be spaced about 8 to 10 feet.
Please note weed and grass competition should be eliminated prior to planting.
Mulching is useful to prevent weed regrowth, but turf grass may need to be controlled by hoeing or with herbicides.
Irrigation should be applied periodically to thoroughly wet the soil. Avoid standing water, as plantains do not tolerate overly wet conditions

Step 6 A&B; ORGANIC & IN-ORGANIC FERTILIZER APPLICATION.

This is the next step after planting
Manuring plantains with a combination of poultry manure, household waste and woodash improved plantain growth, yield and establishment and greatly reduced infestation by borer weevils and nematodes.
The organic manures also maintained soil acidity, regulated soil temperature and conserved soil moisture.
I advise that you water and fertilize Plantain at the same time using any type of balanced fertilizer to help grow Plantain. Plantain are heavy feeders so i suggest that you fertilize very lightly each time that you water with the exception being that you do not fertilize if you are not seeing active growth.( Balanced fertilizer means – a fertilizer that has three numbers on the label like NPK.

No famine in Nigeria- Audu Ogbeh

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, has reassured Nigerians that there will be no famine due to the massive food production in the country.

Ogbeh said this in Abuja while addressing newsmen on the sidelines of the three-day 11th African Economic Conference which began on Monday.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the conference was organised by the African Development Bank (AfDB), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

“How can there be famine when there is so much food production?’’ he asked.

He, however, noted that the cost of food would be high for now and would fall in the next few months because farmers were planting again.

“The problem with those of us in the cities is that we do not even estimate the amount of labour and pain that the peasants go through to produce what they produce.

“If you visit the farm for one day you will not even sell the grains they are selling now at twice the price they are selling and that is why we are pushing machinery to agriculture.

“The prices will fall, but let production reach a level where those who want to exploit can no longer do so because there is so much available everywhere.

“If you start to impose price restrictions now, you will demoralise the farmer but I assure you that we are worried about the cost but the answer is for us to stimulate more production.

“Let us have at least three harvests a year on essential grains, once we do that, if anybody is hoarding, he will be caught by the new harvest.’’

On the issue of repackaging local rice in foreign bags, the minister said that it was unnecessary considering that locally produced rice was superior to the foreign one and tastier.

He also said that the price of rice would soon crash because there were 110 rice mills in the country now and that those mills were going to be pushed into villages to support women in particular.

“Those who are smuggling, adulterating or repackaging in foreign bags do not know what they are doing and in another year, they will be out of business.’’

Ogbeh also said that the issue of herdsmen and farmers’ clashes would soon be over because the government had set up a wing of the army headed by a major-general to tackle it.

He said that there were plans to first disarm herdsmen carrying weapons and hunt down rustlers.

Dangote flour; How price of bread will crash-Yakassai

In a twist of events Nigeria’s indigenous multinational, Dangote Group, bought back a subsidiary it had built and sold off. In this interview, the Managing Director of one of the foremost flour, noodles and pasta producer, Dangote Flour Mills, Alh. Ahmed Yakassai, explained what happened, the results and impacts.

Dangote flour mills journey

We are Nigerian company and we are grass rooted and know the environment, people and culture and we know what it takes to succeed in this environment. We are managing it in the Nigeria way and are succeeding. Dangote Flour Mill came as a result of industrialization policy of the Group dated back to 1997, when we moved from trading business to manufacturing business. It was at that time that the Group President, Aliko Dangote, said enough is enough, and whatever they (foreign manufacturers) can do we can do it here. And we changed the concept and idea of the business from an import based trading company to a manufacturing company. And Dangote Flour Mill happens to be one of the pioneer companies.

Ahmed Yakassai Ahmed Yakassai By 2001, the first mill was ready at Apapa, Lagos with a capacity of 500 metric tons per day. And today we are in Kano, Ilorin, Calabar with a combined capacity of over 7000metric tons of flour per day, and pasta and noodles also came in. In the journey, we sold Dangote Flour business to a South African company for few years. But expectations of the shareholders were not met. They were not making money, and so Dangote Industries had to buy it back. We took it over in January this year. I will say that today the result is there for everybody to see. It is on the papers, stock exchange. We have moved from a loss making company to a profit company.

Internationalisation of Dangote Flour 

We have got requests from our partners to come and set up in other countries. But internally, we have a lot of gaps to fill. Food security is our number one priority and so we feel that in the time being we would meet the local needs in all its entirety and then we would move out to set up plants outside the country. But now, the local demand needs to be met.

Competition 

We are not bothered about competition because as a priority, quality products and customer service, are top on our agenda. We are producing the best quality. We are servicing our customers very well, we deliver to them at their door steps.

Jump in Income 

We have moved the revenue in terms of production capacities and we have more than doubled our capacities in the last 6months, so naturally the revenue will increase. We are grass root rooted company, so we are there with our products before any other wakes up.

If you check the numbers, you can look at the volume that was produced in the previous year, compared to what we’ve produced today, and you can look at the revenue that we have gathered within this period compared to last year. So it is basically having to bring to the table some wealth of experience in Nigeria where we are rooted, trusted and we are a known first consumer goods company and we will continue to give them the best of our products and services.

Profitability

Yes it is as a result of this. As at September we moved from a loss of over N2 billion last year to a profit of over N5 billion. If you look at the Dangote Flour group it comprises of the flour, pasta and noodles. Some aspects of the group are just coming up the ladder and they are not exactly where we want them to be. 

Sometimes you allow this kind of things to happen so that you can reposition them and we are in the process of repositioning all the businesses to turn into good numbers, and that will happen; soon you will see it in the results.

Costs 

We are doing everything possible to control cost as a challenge to management but this is basically related to other sectors of the economy. Increases in input due to exchange rate, it is really out of control in some cases, but we are doing our best at all times to make sure that we bring it to reasonable limit. It is also not limited to us and we are not all in all because we depend on other sectors.

Group support

I must say the support from the group has been tremendous and it is the support that has made us succeed beyond our expectations. They are there come rain come shine and they are making sure that we attain whatever level that we are today. If I take you a little back, those numbers, if you look at our distribution cost, energy cost.

When we started the year, we had a budget of N90 to a liter of diesel, but today a liter is over N200 and so you can imagine the impact. It is beyond what we can do. So while the Group sometimes goes with an import, some other times we have to go into the open market like any other company. Some of the cost is as a result of the activities in the economy that are beyond us. And when those costs are controlled the profitability will be higher. Of course the product would have landed to the consumers at lower price than what it is now. I have to buy the dollar at the market price and not my own price and that translates to the selling price of my product.

Forex challenges

Despite everything I think the CBN and the government are doing very well in managing the situation. Of course it could be better. Definitely it is a difficult situation and you can see from all corners that they are doing everything possible to help industries and that is what should be the right thing to do. For a long time we have been import based, but by the time everybody settle to the fact that we are a big country with such a huge market size, people would come and start to produce here. Even the spare parts and other things that we import are going to be produced here in Nigeria.

Government should invest in research and development and they should help people to grow wheat all over the country because wheat is 80% of our raw material. We have the land, water and human resources. Government should provide the right infrastructure and people will produce what we consume and even export.

Dangote Group backward integration

Within Dangote Group, for example, the sugar refinery, we are investing in plantations in Adamawa, Jigawa and other states, we are investing in sugar-cane production so that we would have enough raw materials to produce our sugar.

The cement is an old history that we know very well that everything is now local. For the flour, through the wheat growers association all the flour mills in the country are investing money so that the association would be encouraged to grow more wheat. Along the line we will substitute the imported with local wheat. It is going to take some time, because it is not rooted in the people to grow more wheat.

Price of bread

As I said earlier, once we are able to address exchange rate, then what we are paying for the wheat import would be less and that would translate in the selling price of flour and by extension the price of bread in the market. The second factor is that once we are able to grow enough wheat here in the country, it is not going to be 100 percent, maybe we need to blend with the imported higher quality to get the best quality, and naturally the cost of flour would come down and bread as well.

Competition from imports

Today officially there is no importation of pasta. But if you go round you would see it in the supermarkets, border towns gradually and slowly, it is getting into the market. It is an open secret. But officially it is not allowed. So we are encouraged and we feel that at a certain point in time, there will be a big stick that will say, you can’t even display it in the supermarket. We put our case to the government through the right channel and we know the government is listening and are doing something about it.

Message to stakeholders

It is a public knowledge that we have moved from a loss making company to a profit making one. At the last Annual General Meeting, the Chairman had told the shareholders what we are doing towards improving their lot. We are following through on this. In the stock exchange, everybody knew we were down to N1.00, but today we are over N4.00.

Next five years 

In the next five years, Dangote Flour would be the number one flour mill in Nigeria. And not just in the baked flour business, but in all other sectors of bankable products, because in 2017 we are going to introduce three new products. We would come up with innovations that help their diet and already we are expanding our scope and we would be the number one.

Ondo farmers urge Akeredolu to prioritize agriculture

Farmers in Ondo state have called on the Governor-elect, Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) of the All Progressive Congress (APC) to accord agriculture a rightful position in the incoming administration as it is the only way to ensure food security.

The Chairman of the Ondo State Agricultural Commodities Association (OSACA), Pastor Akin Olotu who made the call in Akure, the state capital said “the farther we are away from the land, the greater our insecurity” adding that there must be good blueprint for the agric sector as it could create millions of self-sustaining jobs directly and indirectly every year.

He lamented that we are causing extinction of many species when we talk about bio-diversity (life on earth) while the sea level have risen due to thermal expansion and it’s continuous.

According to him, some species of yam that existed some years ago and some other crops have since disappeared.

He also warned that the desert is travelling down south in Nigeria at an alarming rate of 600 metres per year.

“As a nation, a state and stakeholders in the agric sector which is the bedrock of life something must be done,” Olotu said.

He said further: “Meeting the nutritional needs of our people in an economy that is in recession, the climate that has become increasingly unfriendly with the extremes of drought and food coupled with irregular rainfall pattern, is an uphill task”

“It is indeed a daunting task that requires a new in-depth analysis and intervention, suggesting the concept of ‘FARM-ACY ‘rather than the pharmacy that we used to know.”

However, he said as a matter of urgency, everything about agriculture need a review especially in the areas of neglect.

These, according to him, include improvement in deplorable conditions of farm roads, power supply, security, research and technology for better yields and a law to determine cattle grazing.

Why we banned foreign rice in Ebonyi— Commissioner

The Ebonyi State Commissioner for Information, Senator Emmanuel Onwe has justified the banning of the sale and consumption of foreign rice as part of the state government’s moves to uphold the health and well being of the populace.

 

Speaking during a courtesy visit to Vanguard Headquarters in Lagos, the commissioner also clarified issues concerning the purchase price of the locally produced rice even as he said that projected agriculture is one of the measures adopted by the Dave Umahi administration to ensure the viability of the state. Emmanuel Onwe Speaking to Vanguard Editors, Onwe also appealed to the Federal Government to release the grain silos located in the state to the state administration to enable the state administration store grains.

 

Affirming the determination of the Umahi administration to ensure the wellbeing of the populace, Onwe said that locally cultivated rice does not have the kind of chemicals used in cultivating and preserving foreign rice before they are exported to countries like Nigeria. Saying that Ebonyi Rice lacks such, he said: “our contribution will be to make local rice available and easily affordable. People also need to be rest assured that Ebonyi rice is not heavily chemicalised as other rice.”

 

Noting recent disclosures on social media about how plastics were added to foreign rice, he said “it is a welcome development that Ebonyi government has banned the sale and consumption of foreign rice in the state.” According to the commissioner, part of the governor’s responsibilities as the chief security officer of the state is that the health and wellbeing of the populace are not compromised by such additives in foreign made rice.

 

The commissioner also clarified issues on the pricing of Ebonyi rice. According to him, the paddy rice sells for N8,000 per bag while the processed rice which he boasted has no stones sells from N14,000.