Greetings friends,

1. I acknowledge that you may find many grammatical, spellings and related errors. For those i apologize.

Sorry, I was supposed to have started this post since the beginning of the last farming season but because of other engagements, and I was always on the move and the community where my farms are located has zero internet connection. Because of these, I decided to wait till the end of the last farming season before doing this.

So, the government has been encouraging us the youth to go to the farm. I decided to try my hand to see what God will do for me.

I chose commercial rice farming as the main crop to cultivate.
I am a Jos guy but I went to Ibi local government of Taraba State for the farms. I chose this location because it's a hub of the produce.

I am basically giving a brief highlights of the farming venture

At its peak last year, rice sold for more than N35000. It had never been this good for Nigerian rice farmers.

When venturing into rice farming, it's important you adequately prepare to finance from beginning to end.
If not, the cost of harvest, which is usually very high, will make you sell a large parentage of rice to finance it. And selling rice at that point is a loss. You never get good prices.

I am not an agriculturalist, I am just a normal guy who ventured into farming and I am still learning but the experience I've gathered is priceless.

My verdict is that rice farming is lucrative
However, it involves alot of investment and risks. But almost always profitable at the end.

I suffered alot of setbacks these two years but thank God I came out alright.

I am embarking on more daring expansions this season, I am in the process of engaging some investors to finance it.

Nairaland is like a family to me. It took me alot of time to put this report for you guys. Pls Pray that the Lord will bless my hussle in Jesus name

This is just a summary
I will be glad to answer any questions. Just be patient because I will do so at my pace. Thanks

This is a rice producing area where you see thousands of hecters of rice fields that will stretch your view

I've been cultivating 2 types of rice: Upland and the Deep water rice (swamp rice which is locally called biruwa).

Before the last farming season, I cultivated about 2 farmlands of upland rice at Wase local government of Plateau State and I tried the deep water or swamp rice at Ibi, Taraba State. It was successful was so the last season I expanded to 5 rice farms:

Farm 1 (upland) 7 hecters
Farm 2 (deep water rice) 6 hecters
Farm 3 (deep water rice) 5.5 hecters
Farm 4 (deep water rice) 9.5 hecters
Farm 5 (deep water rice) 11 hecters

Because of the Corona pandemic, I couldn't personally go and supervise the cultivation of the first 3 farms. I was giving directives to the workers from home. I was only able to go there for the upland rice and the last deepwater rice.
So the report and media content I'll be sharing here are basically from those two farms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBgJWTrzKyY

Planting of the deepwater rice

As stated earlier, we started late because of the pandemic lockdowns. I was trapped at Jos and could not come and have some of the farm properly cleared by cutting down trees. But the guy who gave us the farmland convinced me to just cultivate in-between the trees. (A decision I later discovered was a costly mistake)

A cleared farm is supposed to look like this bellow

Broadcasting of rice is the first step.
This farm is about 11 hecters so we came with about 7 120kg bags.
for this, I hired about 10 people to broadcast.

We then go ahead with the harrowing


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UesEfU-GvhY

Make i book space

After tractor harrowing, I hired 3 motor bikes and about 13 guys for the spraying of the the first round of glyphosate, a pre-emergence herbicide (weed killing solution)

pictures below are the guys preparing to leave for the farm.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yZR5kXASeM

Upland Rice


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJbnsnWx21o


We started by spraying the same glyphosate pre emergence 5 days before tractor work.

For this farm we carried out double tractor operations
The first Harrow work was done before 5 bags of rice was broadcasted.

We had machanical defficulties and could not finish second harrow immediately. But we were able to finish that days later.

Immediately after the Harrow, i hired about 7 people to spray the next pre emergence herbicide - pendimethaline. This herbicide kills the very seed of the weed, thus delaying it's recovery and giving the rice opportunity to dominate.

Wow! Did you buy the farmlands or did you get them on lease?


Also what is your experience with the Fulani cattle herders and their sickly looking cows?

1 month later
-post emergence herbicide spraying-
this is usually sprayed in about 2-3 weeks after emergence of rice and possibly weed. Our farm was especially stubborn. After all the spraying, alot of weed showed up.

This is usually not a problem with timely herbicide application. But due to drought, we sprayed 4 weeks after planting when the rain finally came. This was a huge setback for us because later on the weed became difficult to control.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY6ImrCPYiY

We also sprayed 24d all the farms. This kills broadleaf weeds

We later applied about 24 bags of npk fertilizer


Npk at Jos before taken to the farm at Ibi

See how dirty one becomes after fertilizer application.

The rains ceased early this year and we could not apply the UREA fertilizer. This was supposed to be applied shortly before the rice starts to produce the heads.

Very educative thread...

Nice one mate

Hmm quite educative. Well doing OP. I done carry chair

NB: fertilizer is usually not applied to the deep water rice (biruwa) I met it that way and the locals usually get a fair yield.
In fact, operations stop at the application of 24D post emergence. When the floods come you can't even come to visit your farm unless with a canoe. you only come during harvest when the water has receded to see what God has given you.
This cheap production cost of this type of rice is the major attraction for it.

-Harvest-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy9nFo8WrpI

Harvest starts in November.
With thousands of hecters waiting to be harvested, a visitor would wonder how all that rice would ever be reaped, but when harvest time comes, you see massive migration of labour force from the North to this farming community called Tapga and environs. So, before the end of December, you on meet gleaners at the farms. With no farm rice standing.

I started reaping my upland rice using my reaping machines (watch the video above please.)


This is me below supervising reaping

Reaping upland rice

I used my thresher for threshing


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPOJ7xakqSY

Threshing

Reaping of the deepwater rice is done by hand as no harvesting machine is known reap it.


I experienced large rice loss percentage with the thresher I used. This was the same thresher that we recently made improvements on by local fabricators.
We figure that once we change to bigger escape nets, and remove some fan bottom plates, it will serve Just fine.

But time was against us and there is no good fabricator nearby- the closest being at Kuka in shendam LGA of Plateau State.
So both reaping and threshing of all the swamp rice was done by hand.

After the threshing, I hired women for the winnowing.

It's important to bargain the winnowing to be done per bag. Daily pay is not convenient because they don't work fast. And God help you if you have multiple farms as I had. I was working like a machine.

We transport the harvested rice and pile them at the Ibi base before eventual transportation to be sold at Shendam LGA.
You can choose to sell at that village but you get better prices at Shendam LGA.


(There are always buyers hovering over farmers like vultures. These are the times when farmers feel like kings. Lol)

It's important that rice is piled at base before final transportation for sale. This safeguards against theft, fire etc. It's usually a race against time.


First batch of rice loaded and ready for transportation out.