Vision 2020: Making Money Farming Without Owning A Farm

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We all want a good investment – and why not? Everyone wants to make good money, and especially for Nigerians, we want it to be as stress-free as possible. Investing, generally, is one way to create an excellent passive income system for yourself. To better know what you are doing, it requires you doing your homework. Nowadays, investment opportunities are all over the internet, and assets are now owned digitally, bringing investment closer to everyone. Perhaps, the youths being the biggest gainers as they have the largest population of internet users.

About digital assets, these are assets with no physical presence. Things like websites, visual designs, architectural plans, patents, trade secrets, photos, digital paintings, music, video, cryptocurrencies, and now even farms.

The good thing about digital assets is that they offer great returns on one’s starting capital. These assets do not require as much luck as other types of making money, and one of such which this piece is about being digital farms.

Investing in farming can appear to be an honest strategic move. After all, whether the general economy is in a recession or booming, there is always a high demand for food. This is the reason most persons regard agribusiness as recession-proof. Additionally, the earth’s population is on the rise, which means farming will keep playing an increasingly vital role in the sustenance of humans.

That said, getting to buy a farm is not always a possible plan for an ordinary investor. Getting land for farming requires huge finances. Even the time and expenditure involved in running a farm has to be of considerable importance. Fortunately, investors can now pull funds together and from different parts of the world, even without knowing each other, all within the confines of their rooms using a medium known as the world wide web.

No doubt, agriculture is the new “crude oil” and those who invest in it know this. The 21st century’s approach to farming, i.e. using the digital space to get investors, has helped in fusing agriculture and technology to increase food supply and has subsequently generated income for investors. This is something everyone interested in building wealth for themselves, while still having time to concentrate on other important aspects of their lives, would all be excited to sign up for.

There are many reasons to invest in agriculture, from it being a low-risk investment that is financially sound, safe, and secure and keeps pace with inflation, to the fact that it increases in value over the long-term. Agriculture is a hard asset and could stay as a major portfolio or a diversified one.

Those in the agribusiness make profits from several ways, be in yields, land appreciation, forced equity, principal pay down, and other unmentioned incomes. But these are really the concerns of the actual farmers, not the “digital farmer” whose concern is to invest into a farm and get back his capital with the return on investment.

The digital farmer can make money through cash flow from crops and animals that are harvested. Most of these are annual, but in some cases, there can be multiple harvests in a year. These yields are secured via long-term contracts by the tenant farmers and placed on sale for investors to buy. Most of these farms are insured, which protects the farmer and investors in the event of a catastrophe. This means that even if crops and/or animals are destroyed or their revenue declines due to a downturn in commodity prices, the farmers will still receive funds with which they can pay their lease and settle investors, thereby putting them on a safe level.

It is important to note that agriculture rarely provides immediate returns, but over the long-term, it pays off greatly. Unlike digital investments like Forex, cryptocurrencies and others, there is much less volatility in agro investments, meaning subscribing or buying a space on an online farming platform (which is adding agriculture to your investment portfolio) can provide continual stability with the potential for a quarterly to an annual income.

Some of the farms worth mentioning are:

  1. Menorah Farms

Menorah Farms pride itself as a pocket farm – a handy farm which is accessible to you at any time of the day and from anywhere you find yourself. That is, your farm is with you all the time. A quick glance through their site/app shows that they offer high interest on investments to as high as 37%, making them the best bet for Nigerians who are always on the lookout for the biggest returns. With over 5,000 farmers and 700 subscribers, they can be trusted to live by what they put out. They farm in crops and animals. Unfortunately, the Menorah Farms app is only available on the Google Playstore. They also have a plan for undergraduates and corpers that allows them to invest with as little as ₦5,000 as can be found on Taaooma‘s Instagram page. While speaking with a correspondent, it was revealed that all slots have been sold but another farm will be made available within the month.

  1. Farmkart

As the name implies, this is an online store of farms where interested investors buy farms with specified amounts for a limited time, after which they are paid profits alongside the initial capital they used in purchasing farms. From their website, it appears they only deal in animal husbandry, mainly fish and poultry – the former offering interests up to 30% after 12 months while the latter is 14% after 6 months. Just last month, TechCabal had tweeted that the company produced 430,000 fishes and 840,000 eggs and made a net profit of $91,000 (about ₦32,896,500) since its inception in 2016. They do not have a mobile application, but everything can be done on the website. There are currently no farms to be bought on their platform until March this year as hinted by a correspondent, but you can subscribe to their email newsletter to stay up-to-date.

  1. FarmCrowdy

FarmCrowdy is a multiple award-winning digital farm and the platform with the most farms, spreading across animals to crops. With a wide variety of farms that produce maize, cassava, tomato, fish, rice, soya beans, poultry, cattle, ginger, yam, moringa and cumin. Despite this huge variety, they offer the least return, promising 6-25% on investments with a minimum of ₦50,000 to over ₦200,000, spanning 3-12 months. With their mobile applications, iOS and Android users can be updated about their investments 24/7. They are the most popular digital farm with over 4,000 farm sponsors and 80,000+ farm sponsorships. FarmCrowdy is fully insured by Leadway Assurance. All farms on the website have been taken, and all efforts to speak with a customer care agent proved futile.

  1. Gric Coin

Springing from the background that the agricultural sector is the single largest employer in the world, Gric Coin leveraged on blockchain – the new edge of technology and incorporated it into agriculture to better agricultural practices, increase food supply and put an end to food fraud. The Gric Coin agricultural project lets shareholders use its token for subscription on live farm projects while they earn returns on their investment.

*There is another – Great Soar – though only seeking for first-time investors at the moment to invest in agriculture, they are offering a high return on investment of 40%, payable bi-annually and annually, depending on the type of farm. For every stream of investment, a guarantee for performance is consummated through a Notarized Memorandum of Agreement and Insurance bond that will cover capital fund and returns. You can reach out to the Director, Olukunle Okusanya and request for more information.

Just like many investments, they come with risks, and agriculture is no exception. You can rest assured that the aforementioned farms have been verified and your investments are safe with them. With these options, investors looking to take a position within the farming sector but with little or no funds to purchase and maintain a conventional farm can still own one virtually. [To those reading this but have no funds at the moment to buy an “online plot of land,” there is still some time. Maybe you could start by creating a savings plan on Fundall where they help you autosave for important goals like investing digitally in agriculture.] Having said that, a conventional farm demands way too much, but a digital farm gives you peace of mind while you continue to make profits for yourself. This is the beauty of investing digitally in agriculture.

AUTHOR PROFILE:

Kator Tarkaa is a digital marketer and a budding investment writer. He enjoys writing about businesses and finances. He loves marketing products and services via social media.

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