Kamal Mohammed is one young man that has learned from the bitter experience of mistakenly trusting everyone in agribusiness. His tale, though bitter, did not kill the determination to excel—something very uncommon with young Nigerians.
Agribusiness is something Kamal and other siblings in the family inherited from his aged father and would like to die in it.
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“My dad and siblings are all livestock farmers and business people; it is a family thing. Livestock farming is really nice but also very stressful because of their feedings and sickness – it scares people away from the business.
Besides that, Kamal prays everyday not to have a repeat of what has changed him and other collaborators in the business of livestock trading forever—losing N1.5million to fraudster who bought animals and made fake transactions with a bank alert only to go to the bank to realise it was fake.
“I always pray we fall into good hands and not scammers because we have been scammed on various occasions. Last year, we were scammed of N 1.5m. They came, loaded cows and goats and made fake transaction alerts; it was when we got to the bank that we realised it. That’s how we left everything to God. We had to pay some owners of the goods with our own money,” he said.
In his early 30s, Kamal though had little formal education but has learned a lot from his father in livestock business, including treating sick animals in his stable. It is something he described as a gift from God.
At the just concluded show, Kamal came with many animals, including Kalahari goats, boar goats and a breed of Frasier cow, which he said was already sold at the cost of N2m. Although the cow is not his, belonging to the farm he represents in Keffi, Nasarawa State, he supplies good breeds to farmers who want to raise them.
“What we do is go to other countries. You can see that the goats are not from Nigeria. These white ones are boar and the red ones are Kalahari red goats.
“We sell and rear them. If you want the big ones, we have them, or if you are interested in the smaller ones for rearing, we also have them. They are all available. We got these big cows you are seeing as at the time they were small and reared them till they became big. That’s exactly what we do every year,” he said.
The small Kalahari costs between N70,000 and N60,000, while the small boar costs between N60,000 and N50,000, depending on the size.
The big ones will cost between N120,000 and N130,000. In other places, you can get the big ones at N200,000 and above.
Apart from what he does on his own and the family, Mr Kamal also attached himself with a farm, where he can also help to get customers because of the passion he has for the business.
“I and the owner of the farm here share an understanding. I cater for his animals because there is nothing in them I don’t know. Also, there’s no sickness in animals that I can’t help. It is a gift from God,” he said.
He said every farmer should learn how to be patient and accommodate losses.
“In this business you can remove a million and get livestock and if you are unlucky they would get sick, and some would even die. But if you have trust in God and continue to rear them, you will be lucky. Sometimes when we buy, some of them would die inside the truck before we arrive at our destinations and we would lose a lot of money. The best thing is to put your trust in God,” he added.
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