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"Want to see what billions of dollars are like in pregnancy?" P. Okocha, jeans and sneakers on the feet, rushes into a small modern house lost in the countryside of Abeokuta, southern Nigeria. Behind the door spread a thousand seedlings of sweet potato.
"With that, we can produce millions of other seedlings," says the young man with a broad smile.
At 34, Peter Okocha Junior, aka PJ, has already invested in harbor transportation and the development of the Delta oil region, where his family has made a fortune. But his eldorado will be green, he is convinced.
"I always wanted to invest in agriculture, but I did not know how," he told AFP. "One day, dragging on Twitter, I came across an agricultural researcher and I wrote him 'Hi my brother, how would you like to change the world together?'"
In a few months, their company PS Nutrac was born. Two years later, tens of thousands of plants grow under greenhouses of bamboo, grown to infinity in aeropony, that is to say without land and thanks to an ingenious system of aeration and watering, a a rare off-soil form of cultivation in developing countries
(AFP – STEFAN HEUNIS)
This afternoon in June, PS Nutrac employees gathered a group of small farmers from the nearby town to train them on the new organic sweetpotato varieties they developed. 19659002] All the young people of the village left the countryside to go "live in town", explains Chef Awufe Ademola, in his sixties and owner of a small farm of a little more than three hectares.
Sitting in rows, the Traditional farmers have curved backs and calloused hands. Facing them, the trainers are all under 35.
– Food Challenge –
"We are all young and we want to make farming more profitable and sexier," says P. J. Okocha. "The average age of farmers is 60, it is necessary that the new generation returns to the land (…) and technologies and automation can make the sector more attractive for young people", launches -it.
The food challenge is immense: Nigeria has 180 million inhabitants and is expected to be the third most populous country in the world in 2050.
After the discovery of huge black gold reserves in the 1950s, successive leaders and private investors have had one obsession, oil, neglecting other sectors of the economy
Access to agricultural products for megacities of several million people is achieved by over-age trucks on broken roads. There are not enough storage sheds, let alone refrigerated, and processing plants are rare.
To take just the example of citrus fruits, Nigeria produces nearly 4 million tons each year. but 60% of the fruits rot. And the country imports $ 315 million worth of concentrated juice per year, or 91% of its consumption (USDA Gain Report, 2009).
An economic aberration that today makes investors dream.
"The opportunities offered by agriculture are beyond imagination", says Buffy Okeke-Ojiudu, 34, happy owner of 200 hectares of palm oil exploitation in the south-east for two years.
"The future billionaires of this country will be farmers or people who invest in new technologies or renewable energy. unlike oil, these are sectors that create jobs, "says one who is none other than the grandson of the agriculture minister of the post-colonial era.
Former Trader –
But returning to the land is not easy. The main problem for business leaders in Nigeria is access to bank loans, even more so in agriculture, considered a "risky" sector.
"Interest rates are often double-digit and there is We need loan guarantees at 150% of the amount borrowed, it does not make sense, as a result: those who invest in agriculture do so on their own funds, these are the ones who are already rich ", explains the trader. in the United States and England.
Seyi Oyenuga, too, spent most of his life between Chicago and Washington, before returning to his father's country three years ago: he traded his American life and his business of renting construction machinery to settle in the Oyo State (Southwest Nigeria)
Along the road, women pound dried manioc on the macadam and the villages seem asleep. Almost all the large farms around were abandoned by their owners and left uncultivated.
– The hard way –
But in the farm of Seyi Oyenuga, Atman Farm, one activates to recharge the batteries of the tractors before
John Deere cap on his head, gingham blue shirt and keffiyeh around his neck, the farmer lifts tractor trailers with his workers under a blazing sun. 19659002] "We learned the hard way," he says.
Negotiate with local traditional chiefs to obtain title deeds. Digging tractors in the fields. Invent flour wheels with local materials. To raise electricity pylons to connect the factory …
This year, it aims to plant cassava on 400 hectares, five times more than last year, at the first harvest. And this is just the beginning: he has given himself barely ten years to reach his ultimate goal of cultivating 2,000 hectares.
"It's difficult, but it's really exciting," says Seyi Oyenuga wiping his forehead. "I am now able to do things that I would never have imagined possible."
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