Thread by @olusegunyemi

Happy Sunday Y’all.

@ayopo is one of my mentor and I have known him since growing up. He was my very old Senior at both Secondry School and UNAAB.

Today, I’ll be sharing what I learnt from him.

Economics of Citrus farm establishment

A very good retirement plan you can do.

I shared few days ago on Vitamins C available in Orange and Green Pepper and Chilli. Even though they had more Vitamins C than orange, it fades of faster if not consumed whereas orange retains its Vitamin C making it so relevant.

Orange,any of several species of small trees or shrubs of the genus Citrus of the family Rutaceae and their nearly round fruits, which have leathery and oily rinds and edible, juicy inner flesh.A number of species and varieties of orange are economically important,
Citrus family

How many types do you know ?

The common ones are Sweet Orange(Jaffa from Israel, Seedless Navel, The Maltese , or Blood orange), Tangerines and the Sour Orange.
blog.ediblearrangements.com/different-type…

So, will you like to retire on an ORCHARD ?

Imagine you having 10 acres of land 3-5 years before your retirement and you have split it into 2. Get 5 acres of land filled with ORANGE seedlings from @ayopo and 5 acres filled with Coconut 🌴 from @lagoscoconut Then wait and enjoy.

Economics of Citrus farm establishment.
Go out of your street and look around you for the next 3 km distance, you will notice groceries shops and other places where fruits are sold

You wonder why oranges are always available on almost every street and yet except you travel to owo in Ondo, Benue and Bauchi kaltungo where you find them growing in large plantations, you may not have seen orchard as much a you see cocoa and oil palms.

That’s the reason why we import oranges into the country from neighbouring west African countries to nigeria. Even if you have all the funds now, fresh cashew and mangoes have disappeared back to where they came from.

None like oranges remains most consistent available all year round just like pineapple. I will talk about pineapple some other times.
Citrus includes orange, lemon , lime ,Cleomarine tangerine tangalo grape sour orange shaddock etc.

The general populace have orange as their best, the middle class and Ajebutter have lemon as their best. The medical conscious ones depends on lime and lemon .

Anyway assume you go to @ayopo farm and buy an acre of land free of government encumberances for N150k/N200k outright purchase. Hire a buldozer to clear such for N65k to N70k making. A perimeter survey for N10k . Making N280k max to have the land available for planting of Citrus.

You get your BUDDED CITRUS for N400 and using a spacing of 4m * 4m , you have 250 planted in an acre. Assume you do this, one will need to plant a secondary crop like ginger or pineapple or maize to filled the land so as to maximize the space around the Orange plantation.

If you plant 5kg of maize along with the citrus, you will have a population of 11,000 stands of maize in between the 250 citrus. 1kg improved maize is about #400 -#800. After 3 months, you will be able to sell at farm price #20/cobs of maize for 200 pieces at N4k. Do the maths.

If you are such a smart farmer, you can grow the maize twice that year. The next year you can grow another crop in between and this can goes on for minimal of 5yrs whereas your citrus will start fruiting the 3rd year .

Back to the citrus. Basic post planting operations are pruning, weeding, fungicides and insecticides application which will not take more than 2 hrs job at most. You can leave the plantation in the hands of security or resident farm hands .

When the crop start fruiting, it does so twice a year and where water is perennial, it can fruits all year round.

Yield per tree per year varies with age from 300 to 3000 balls of oranges per tree subject to varieties, season ,fertility of the soil and management. At worst scenario, assume each tree gives 200 fruits per season ' this implies 400 fruits per tree per year.

Selling at N10 per fruit to those who will buy on the tree and use their own labour to harvest. Random could.ting or specific counting when harvested down can be done. Anyhow'a tree gives N4k per year bcos 400*10.

If you grow an acre under good management and support, 250 stands cannot but gives you opportunities to make good money.

Dont forget farming has peculiar challenges especially security and labour. Security mostly from those who may bring in animals to graze on your crop and run away, from labourers you will employed who works only when you are around and goes elsewhere to do personal job.

just like you and I sometimes do especially if we work where there are not justification for time spent daily at work.

Hmmmn. So you may not be able to grow 5acres, if you can’t control security and labour.

I am sure you already have your retirement plan secured at an increasing opportunities as long as you prune and your citrus grows with age.

When you Look around and count how many fruits you find on the tree growing around your house. You can imagine what will be your joy if you keep a thousand tree to yourself.
Plan to hire a supervisor and let an expert established it for you.

So guyz, if you want to plant 🌱 Orange as your retirement plan cash crop. Contact @ayopo MD/CEO SOGOLD AGRICULTURAL VENTURES they’ll be of help out. Bye
@sarnchos @fimiletoks @ogundamisi @MadedorVictoria @SeruyaFarm @DrJoeAbah @Kolafolorunsho @FarmsquareNg @FmardNg @FarmRepublic

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