Hanan* (27) was pushed to the reins after her father’s death almost resulted in the loss of her family’s farms and their primary source of income.
Six years later, she’s learned how to oversee hundreds of acres of farmland activity, improve operations and double the business’s profit margin to ₦80m/Month. Now, she wants to create a path of her own.
This is how she is doing it.
As told to Boluwatife
Model not affiliated with the story.
Farming has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My grandfather owns most of the land in our village in northern Nigeria, which is the foundation of my family’s farming legacy.
My dad took over after my grandfather passed, and his interest in the farm began to rub off on me as soon as I could walk. During school holidays and most weekends, my siblings and I were on the farm learning about the crops and distribution channels and even planting new crops with the workers.
The farm consists of multiple batches of land in various locations, and we grow everything from rice, maize, beans, groundnuts, and ginger to breeding livestock like chickens, cows, and goats.
My dad passed away in 2017, and I suddenly gained control of our entire farm operations. I was 21 and had just entered the university.
I thought I already knew a lot about running the farm. It turned out I didn’t.
First steps: Learning the ropes
The farm is about two hours away from the city where I grew up. Because of the distance, my dad spent most of his time in the village during the farming season when he was alive.
While my siblings and I usually joined him during holidays, I didn’t do much of the planting. Somehow, my crops always turned out wrong, so I gradually stopped going to the farms.
Instead, I kept up with the buying and selling side of things from the city. We have several long-term clients, mostly manufacturers, to whom we supply farm products. For example, we supply raw rice to one of the popularly known rice brands in the country; they just process and bag it. We also supply ginger to drink factories.
These distribution efforts involve a lot of contract work and managing the workers and clients. So, I assisted my dad with this aspect of the business — I didn’t need to go to the farm.
But after my dad’s death, I was the obvious choice to keep the farm running. My elder brother was also in the running, but he knew even less about our operations than me and wasn’t as business-savvy.
I had to work with our oldest farm workers to learn more about the crops. My mum and uncle also taught me how and when to make decisions. I spent all my time moving from one farm to another, overseeing operations like our organic fertiliser production, handling staff and other local farmers, and resolving issues.
I began actively running things in 2018.
At the time, I was still trying to find my feet in school. My new responsibilities at the farm meant I constantly missed classes and finished 100 level with several carryovers. By the start of 200 level, I was already considering dropping out of school. The only thing that kept me going was remembering the premium my dad paid for education. As the first daughter, I needed to set a good example for my siblings.
So, regardless of how I felt, I had to keep pushing and focus on achieving my goals without getting distracted, even if some of those distractions were my family.
Navigating extended family problems
Since my dad’s death, I’ve had to fight for my right to run the farm. My dad’s siblings — who have no idea how the farm runs — wanted to take over.
They were already on the farm’s board of directors and were involved in major decisions. They also received a percentage of the farm’s monthly income. Still, they wanted complete control. They preferred that their children run it rather than “this small girl.”
I knew the farm would ultimately shut down if I handed operations over to them. They knew nothing about farming, and I couldn’t watch my father’s hard work go down the drain. The farm also has over 200 workers. What would happen to their jobs if everything went downhill? So, I refused to let go.
In the end, culture helped. Culturally, my dad owned everything my grandfather had, so there was a limit to how much his siblings could fight me. They still receive a director’s share today — ₦5.5m/month each for the three of them, plus portions of farm produce. They still cause trouble if their farm produce gets to them late or isn’t as much as they expect.
I just consider navigating their troubles one of the many sacrifices to keep the business running.
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Finding balance and doubling the farm’s profit margin
I like to say farming is bipolar. Sometimes, you do everything right, and the harvest is good. Sometimes, the weather just doesn’t cooperate, and the harvest isn’t great.
I’ve learnt to accept that harvest might not be great once or twice a year and prepare for eventualities. Before my dad passed away, we turned to local farmers when we didn’t harvest as much produce as expected. Instead of disappointing our clients, we’d buy produce from the other farmers.
It’s expensive because the crop would be in high demand. So we could buy a bag of ginger ₦10k higher than the usual price. The price difference meant losing money, as we needed multiple bags to meet clients’ demands.
We fixed that issue by building a ₦3.5m warehouse in 2020. Now, we buy crops, especially ginger, when they’re cheap and store them until we need them. There’s minimal loss because the crops still move quickly. Ginger, for instance, is in such high demand every year. It’s funny because we don’t even use ginger in my state; it’s just the rest of Nigeria.
In 2022, we started exporting ginger to the US. This opportunity came from a business event I attended — I met some investors and pitched my business to them. The ginger we grow in Nigeria is very different and much better than that in America. I sent the client free samples; we’ve been doing business ever since.
When my dad ran the farm, our monthly operating costs (like staff payment) averaged between ₦1.5m – ₦2m, and monthly profit averaged ₦45m. Now, we make up to ₦85m in a good month — only ₦5m of this goes to operating costs, the rest is profit. Some of our successes have come from my ability to make business connections through social networking and plan for eventualities, like the warehouse we built and introducing security measures like CCTV systems and military personnel on the farm to reduce employee theft.
The current market price for some crops has also increased profit margins. For instance, a bag of ginger was ₦20k+ a few years ago. Now, it’s almost ₦250k, and I know how to make a good deal. I can negotiate with a local farmer to buy all his ginger at ₦2m when demand is low and sell it at ₦8m later.
That said, a good percentage of the farm’s profit goes to the family. I pay at least ₦10m/month to a family account, which sorts my siblings’ school fees and extended family needs. The thing with being a well-known family is that the billing never ends, and it’s often overwhelming. One family member can come to ask for money for their child’s wedding; another will come for school fees, or to fix their car, or their roof and so on.
The ₦10m in that account usually finishes that same month. I pay my mum ₦1.2m/month and ₦1m/month to my brother. Sometimes, it’s less than that because he’s terrible with money and often touches business money he can access.
Then, I pay myself ₦2m/month. I don’t always pay myself, especially when there are multiple family requests, and I want to limit our expenses. After paying my dad’s siblings their director’s share, the rest of the farm’s profit goes into the business account in case of unplanned events.
Future plans for the farm and my career
I’m very involved in the farm’s operations. But we have structures that ensure the farm runs smoothly without my physical presence. So, I’ve tried to pursue other career prospects outside the farm.
I started building a startup in 2023 to connect virtual assistants (VAs) to foreign clients after I noticed the high demand. I charged the VAs 20% of the agreed pay when I connected them to a client, and for a few months in 2023, I earned $1200/month from the startup.
But I got busy again with the farm, and things fizzled out. Last year (2024), I wanted a change of environment, so I moved to a different city. I also tried to pursue the career thing again. A job I applied to offered me ₦150k, and I immediately knew 9-5 wasn’t for me.
So, I’m working on properly setting up my startup, and my deadline to make it work is the end of this year. If it doesn’t work, I’ll close it and focus on the farm. It’s not like I stopped running things over the phone since I left my state.
Another thing I want to figure out is my finances. By that, I mean growing it even more and having a healthy safety net. I have two financial personalities: there’s the one who wants to enjoy the money I work for. The stronger personality is the one who wants to save all my money. I want to be able to comfortably provide for my family and set up my younger ones in case something unfortunate happens to me or the farm.
So, I tend to save more. I have about ₦76m saved up in commercial banks and other money tied up in gold and silver. Jewellery is the only investment I’m comfortable with. I hate losing money, so you can never catch me investing in forex or things I can’t hold. I won’t do more than ₦1m if I absolutely have to. I can afford to lose that.
My two cents for young people who’d like to invest
There’s more to explore in terms of earning and investing than the options we find on the internet. Take farming, for example; it can be really profitable.
I’d advise anyone interested to do adequate research and go into farming. They don’t need to trade or plant; they can just try warehousing — buy directly from local farmers, store in a good warehouse and sell later. I have friends who have made good money with warehousing. Some even send the produce abroad.
Farming has its disadvantages, but the advantages are higher. Be open to exploring other businesses and investment ideas. You won’t regret it.
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