Shonga farms Ltd, which was established in 2005 in Kwara State, has grown to become a great employer of labour, and is expected to contribute to the country's GDP with its market target of the West African sub-region.

The journey, according to the general manager of the farm, Mr. Bayo Sangobiyi, experienced some hiccups in the first two years of operation but has stabilised and begun an expansion that will take the farm to an enviable height.

"The journey had been very strenuous and not too pleasant at the beginning because the owners of the land were very reluctant to release the land which delayed our settling down. In the first two years of the project, it was at a snail speed but then the farm was like a department under the state ministry of agriculture, supervised by a director.

"We started experiencing progress when the farm became a full fledge limited liability company and since then it has been one success story after another," Sangobiyi said. According to Daily Trust findings, when the farm started operation, it was group into mixed cropping, dairy and poultry but it has recorded more success in poultry farming while the dairy section is also not doing badly.

"Averagely, every section is involved in cropping because it is like a general responsibility for all of them. What we are doing is backward integration; the poultry and the dairy sections plant their own crops. They plant their maize, soya beans, millet and everything. They process them into feeds for the chickens while the dairy section also plants its own silage.

"The farm is expanding; if we look at where we started from and where we are today, it has been a huge success and we are still progressing. For instance, the poultry which has 10,000 slaughtering capacity, slaughters about 7500 chickens daily. Today, as we speak, we are almost completing the second phase of the project which would have 35, 000 slaughtering capacity per day and it would be the biggest in Nigeria.

We have constructed a factory in the diary section to start the first ever cheese exporting plant and our intention is to saturate the entire West African region with our product. With Nigeria's present economic outlook, we are looking more seriously into what we can export so that we can assist the nation to balance her GDP. We equally export cassava chips and we are the only company that has successfully done it in Nigeria in that capacity. We have done five shipments of cassava chips to Israel, Australia and Hong Kong," the GM explained.

Apart from the poultry, dairy and planting activities, the farm also engages in research and development in the areas of breeding and genetics and there are plans to develop adaptable cattle to the farm environment. The farm is also partnering with a lot of seed companies in the USA and Brazil on the supply of maize and soya beans respectively. It also supplies banana to Shoprite in Ilorin. The farm presently employs between 4500 and 6000 workers for both off and peak periods but with the on-going expansion, the poultry section alone has 2000 workers at off and peak periods, which is expected to increase to about 10000 workers when the expansion is completed.

In spite of the successes recorded by the farm, there are challenges which the manager said are surmountable because they are peculiar to almost every project in the country. "Funding has become an undisputable feature in any project in Nigeria and ours is not an exceptional. We are urging the presidency to get the banks to try and design a friendlier and acceptable funding pattern because the moratorium period is not always sufficient. You cannot give me money to go and plant maize which ordinarily takes a minimum of 70 days to mature and then you come to me by the second week to collect the money back.

"That is not possible because at the end of the day, people are forced to pay the interest from the capital which has made many people not to get to the target point. The period between when you get approval and when money gets into the account is another challenge. All these have to be looked into and properly synchronized," Sangobiyi said. Apart from the funding challenge, the farm also had a peculiarity that the management didn't notice on time but has been able to tackle eventually.

The General Manager said, "Due to the proximity of Shonga to the River Niger, the weather pattern is sometimes abnormal. The humidity and temperature always shoot up at the same time and the only place we found a similar pattern during our research was the seed research development company in Brazil.

"Ordinarily, when temperature is high, humility is supposed to go down but because of the River Niger and the direction of flow, both temperature and humidity shoot up at the same time. Invariably, if we plant any crop it means about the time the crop is trying to tassel, the temperature will kill the florescence, which will cause the plant to become infected. But we have succeeded in getting the right seeds for our environment and we are developing year in, year out."

The insinuation that the Zimbabwean farmers took over the lands from local farmers which affected the relationship between them and the host community was clarified by the GM who explained that carrying the local farmers along was part of the farm's community development project.

"When the land was allocated, the design was: for every 1000 hectares of land to the white farmers, we leave a gap of 200 hectares in-between which will be for the local farmers to come in, understudy what we are doing, try and farm the way our own farmers do and part of the mandate was for our farmers to give them the required support. "The design was perfect enough and for those who have lands elsewhere, they could go and translate what they have done on the 200 hectares on them, it was not limited to Shonga community alone. We allowed farmers from all over Edu local government. The aim was that when our local farmers are proficient with the use of all the equipment, they can go to other communities and replicate what they have learnt. We also allow farmers from elsewhere in Kwara and even in Nigeria generally," he narrated.

On plans to introduce more seeds in the planting section, Daily Trust learnt that though it was not in their initial concept, the farm is looking towards a new direction, considering the turn of events in the country. "We partner with other investors who are willing to share from our technical know-how. For example, the Kwara rice factory is interested in coming to us for partnership so that they can farm their rice, pack it and take it to the factory because of the equipment. For tomatoes, there are two companies willing to establish their factories close to us in order to access tomatoes easily for their purees and other things. Some of our farmers are also into fish farming. We are trying our hands in areas where we have comparative advantage now, though a lot of others will still crop up," Sangobiyi added.

Contrary to the rumour that Shonga farms is owned by the Kwara State government, Daily Trust found out that the farm is owned by a consortium of banks while Kwara State has only 10% shares in the farm. The GM said, "As at the time Shonga farms was registered, the Kwara State government had invested in the project by clearing the lands, opening up of roads, light and others. The farm has an independent power station which supplies power to about 37 villages surrounding it. All these were done by the Kwara State government, and we really appreciate Dr. Bukola Saraki and Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed.

"A lot of people don't really understand the concept; the intention was not just for government to invest in the project because if the government had continued, a time would come when the state would be unable to pay staff salaries.

"The government had to partner with banks. Basically, the Shonga farms project is owned by a consortium of banks. At inception, the banks had 75% of the shares and Kwara State government was left with 25% but subsequently, we started bringing in corporate core investors. So as we speak today, Kwara State government has only 10% shares in that project but we will always give them their due respect because the concept was originated by them. The partnership is as intact as it was from inception."