How middlemen affect Agriculture

 Middlemen act as traders in offering their customers an assortment of products acquired from various sources. The middleman has an important function in the economy of the gap bridging activities in the market network. Historically, the middleman is an exporter, wholesaler, importer, retailer, ship owner, banker, insurer or a combination of all these functions.

A middleman plays the role of an intermediary in a distribution or transaction chain who facilitates interaction between the involved parties, in this case the farmers and the consumers, he is specialized in performing crucial activities involved in the purchase and sales of farm products in their flow from the producers (farmers or firms) to the ultimate buyers. He typically do not produce anything but possess extensive knowledge of the market thereby charging a commission of fee for his services.

His functions range from providing valuable information and feedback to producers about consumer behaviour, enable farmers to concentrate on the primary function of production by handling the ancillary functions of warehousing, distribution , marketing etc. he makes the farm froduce available to the consumers at the right place, time and quantity.

Despite these merits, middlemen have known to increase the prices for consumers and reduces selling prices for producers thereby lowering the farmers’ profit margin. Most times they engage in temporary arbitrage, leading to  the increase in food prices the more.

Things you need to know about Sesame seeds production

 

Sesame seed is known as one of the oldest oilseed crops and is well tolerated to drought-like condition (Raghav et al). It has one of the highest oil contents of any seeds with a rich, flavour and is commonly used in cuisines across the world.

It is an annual plant growing 50 – 100cm tall and high yielding crops thrive best on well-drained, fertile soils of medium texture and neutral pH. 

Based on colour, it is classified into white and brown varieties. The white grain (food grade) is used by bakeries for pastry garnishing and salad while the brown grain (oil grade) is used in the production of sesame oil.

According to Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Nigeria is rated among the top 

global producers and exporters of sesame with many years of stable production. The country is currently the 7th largest producer worldwide.

As at now, 90% of sesame production is by small-scale farmers with exports ranging between 140,000 to 180,000 tonnes/year. NEPC supports sesame trade from Nigeria by assisting in Exporters’ Directory, Exporter Certificate Verification portal, production map and international shows.

Nigeria is the largest producer of sesame seeds in Africa (proshare.ng) with about 580,00 tonnes produced in 2017. Sesame seeds present huge opportunities for Nigeria in terms of generating fiscal and export revenue and to take advantage of these opportunities and enhance competitiveness, Nigeria needs to focus on improving processing and yields.

Date from National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that sesame was the most exported agricultural commodity in the 1st quarter of 2020 despite the COVID-19 outbreak that obstructed global trade. A total of ₦49 billion worth of the crop was exported to Japan, Turkey and Europe.

It is a good source of vegetable oil with no cholesterol making it the most demanded in the world. It can be used in pharmaceuticals, confectioneries, cosmetics and many industries for paints, soaps, lubricant and shampoos.

Sadly, it was learnt that the average yield per hectare of sesame in Nigeria is between 0.5 – 1.0 tonnes when compared to China with between 1.4 – 1.6 tonnes/ha. The gap is due to knowledge gap, poor crop management practices and poor processing procedures adopted by the small-scale farmers.

TOM AND JERRY ON THE FARM

 

Credit: vinagecko

                                                

When dealing with pests of stored items (feeds, farm produce, etc), a lot of ideas and methods comes to mind as loss to storage pests, especially rodents can sometimes be devastating. A poultry farmer in a farm settlement narrated how he was able to deal with rodents in his store. His ordeal was a very fascinated way of using the biological method – CAT. Let’s not forget that biological pest control is a technique of controlling pests by using other organisms. Cat is a natural enemy of rats and mice.

Credit: Thriftyfun

                                                

The farmer ruled out the idea of using poison. He discovered that the rodents usually contaminate the poultry feeds after ingesting the poison and this resulted in the death of his turkeys some years before he introduced the cat in which he. The technique he used was to partly feed the cat during the day so that it can hunt effectively at night.

This method actually has its own setback. Culturally, it is believed that if a cat feed on the leftover of rat/mouse or vice versa, it brings about some sort of connection between the two, and the cat cannot do anything to the rat. Interesting you think! So to avoid this, the farmer changes the cat periodically.

Credit:Animal Channel

                                            

Cat, of course, is the number one enemy of any rodent. The presence of the cat alone scare away the rodents. But if the rodent happens to be a big one and fight back, the cat might be injured. The method used by the farmer in this article was effective to him because he changed his cats periodically.

Or what do you think is a better biological method of controlling storage pests?