MAKING HORTICULTURE A BUSSINESS with Mr BEDA

It automatically happened that I loved agriculture since my childhood  and I can assure you this is more passion than actual business  .I’ve been in several countries and gaining a lot of inspirations that triggered me to do agriculture as a real business and love for it comes later .

My desire about agriculture especially horticulture is to see it changes peoples life to the same level as those who buy our agricultural product .I do not say that I will change Tanzania or maybe to change the whole agriculture sector but through me and other people dealing with it will ensure that even the government will not take agriculture as the ‘by the way’ sector as it is now

So, we are looking forward to see how integration  of value chain to see what should be added ,what to decrease and collect them into one thing also to see how technology advancement will help us to achieve them all .

There is the notion that agriculture is for rich people , partly  I can say YES as sustainable agriculture and commercial it needs money , skills ,energy expenditure and also time .By that manner you can see money (being rich ) is needed it needs INVESTNMENT , Partly I can say NO if you need to do subsistence agriculture for homestead consumption you don’t need to have that plenty of money  though money is not always an answer but you can witness yourself the difference of achievement to the one who decided to invest and those not invested

Agriculture needs your full presence regularly  not to pour your money and continue doing other stuffs .Our fellow (European and Asian ) are well advanced in this field because whenever you find someone is doing agriculture he/she is truly investing on it although I don’t mean you have to abandon other activities because am not here to tell you the do’s and don’ts  but I am trying to say that the best rewards comes when one put effort and figure out what you are dealing with in terms of money , water sources , good seeds , and fertilizers are just inputs and the rest is management .

Like other business gratification is not something to escape in agriculture , the problem  is we take money as the only investment to put in the business, we don’t think about time . Time is another factor that can not be separated with business  although most of our Families money as a resource is so limited to the extent that people need fast rewards .

International market for horticultural product is a long process although other people succeed but even local and internal market is available and sustainable enough to not bother about exporting , and its true that some horticulture products are very marketable to international markets and can pay you more

To know the market , where and how to reach there , to know how much lost on the way and during storage will make you know as you are making profit or not .So we all need a well  coordinated system and proper logistics so that to minimize  the  rise of price .

May this be a call to the Tanzanian youth who are dreaming of dealing with agriculture (horticulture ) ,like other business it only need being ambitious and passionate about the thing you are about to deal with .