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Ozioma Ukegbu-Onwordi is a sales and marketing expert with specialization in market research, product development, sustainable relationship and people management, garnered over a decade in the finance industry; where she won several awards for her outstanding performance and contribution to the income growth of her organization.

Driven by her passion for food security, she founded Eden-Acres Integrated Organic Farm where she partners with smallholder farmers to bridge market gaps and access both local and international markets through the aggregation, processing and distribution of organically farmed local produce.

Modern people in Agric try to give the impression that Agric is glamorous…

Basically in every industry, banking, for instance, there are people who dress so nicely that when you see them you would want to be a banker; Farming is not dirty. Yes, there is the manual work involved, but it is a whole business and there are different parts to it so if you are in the pharmaceutical industry you will probably be wearing a lab coat, face mask, hair net and the same apply to farming.

There are sectors that require you to be fully kitted. It is a traditional mindset most persons have that only old people go into farming, tattered and unkempt; mostly subsistence farming but commercial farming has taken a realistic turn and is involved in hydroponics and other forms as well.

As I earlier said, there are many parts to it, the marketing, packaging, production amongst many others. While businesses have different components and if you want to talk about digitizing the market which is the way forward for almost all businesses, people will want to identify with an organization or institution that understands their needs.

We have moved on to start eating exotic vegetables because we can actually grow them in Nigeria.

 Currently, we are harvesting cantaloupes which are imported, and same with dragon fruits and strawberry,  which are grown in Jos owing to the favourable weather which is also temperature for crops like broccoli and cauliflower so people can equally invest in this cause we have a lot of people growing yams and cassava though these yam farmers.

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One can go into mechanized farming which can give a large yield in a small space and better varieties.  We talk about food sustainability, hunger eradication and it is not going to happen in a day, seeing as the population is growing, so farming has gone beyond that traditional mindset in outlook, approach, application and implementation.

What is the difference between your lifestyle as a banker and that of a farmer?

In the business, there is really is not much of a difference. As a banker, we have set targets, account management, create loans, chased deposits because it has to be paid at some point and targets do not come easy because it is a mix of a lot of things, from assets to liabilities.

If you have produced and are not able to sell, how do you make money to pay your bills and if you are not growing the right crops and selling them for next to nothing,  how are you going to break even, and how long will it take you?

 I work almost round the clock though I manage my time better now. There was no time for me to test the waters with my toes.

Banking helped me multi-task because you have to do quite a number of things and I was the oldest of six children, which means me doing a lot of housework so it was not really difficult for me to adjust and as your business grows, you have to build structures. You need to be surrounded by people who think alike and make sure your vision becomes a reality that even in your absence, they will be able to carry on.                                             

We are also working with farmers who are ethical, exposed and educated enough, who are growing conventional food products that are safe to consume, I went as far as getting a food nitrate tester that tests the level of nitrates in food and nitrates mainly come from fertilizers and synthetic chemicals to ensure consumer safety.

It is open, so you decide on what to get because honestly when you go to the open market, you do not know the source of your food products even with the big companies and supermarkets; as most of these products come in sealed packages.

We put up processes to bridge that gap because we harvest sweet potatoes whose shelf life is three months as opposed to the ones in the market that barely last a month, so we decided to start making sweet potato flour so people have options aside garri. Also, diabetic and gluten intolerant patients will also enjoy this.

 We can even control the farming process and there are thousands of farmers that can be dedicated to growing potatoes for us from this point. We started off with groundnut oil; we have access to groundnut because the sunflower oil that is usually in the market and most of the popular brands are not as healthy as pure oils. As God would have it, last year we got about five of our products approved by NAFDAC.

How is your franchise plan going; is it viable?

Like my business consultant would say, entrepreneurs have many ideas brewing in their head but it is a step at a time so yes, in future we will have to because if you want to reach out to more people or build a community of people eating healthy, the franchise will be one of the best ways.

How easy will it be to control your franchises?

In franchises, there are terms and conditions usually guiding and protecting it that should not be missed like branding, sourcing and then, there are periodic checks.

A good number of top eateries in Nigeria do complain about their franchises, what could be the reason?

The policy will not be the same most likely, though I am sure, if structures are in place, it will not be so difficult. Looking at the banking sector, each bank would have a minimum of 180 branches nationwide and one policy guides everybody to remember, everyone is online and operates with a single server so if the head office is down, it will go on to affect other branches, so same method banks use in coordinating operations from one location to another, same process and method that the banks have, is what I want to be able to adapt and it can be done by starting small because it is said a family is like an image of what the larger society looks like so when we start at this stage and put those processes in place, it will mean that as we grow bigger and people come to set up businesses or offices that are affiliates, then we can actually monitor and retract the contract if they do not meet the terms or fail through after giving them a band to correct their wrong at some point.

A snippet will be how we correctly handle our customers; customer data is extremely important to the bank because, without it, there will be no chance of forming an extended customer relationship management, which is essential to the bank.

In our business we have what we call customer experience officers, they work as account officers would and I tell my people in each bank, at least the ones I worked in, there is no bank that does not have a minimum of 17,000 accounts even if there are three account officers in each branch.

Even if those accounts are dormant, they will be coded to account officers, though the priority principle applies that you manage the major twenty because you obviously cannot manage thousands of accounts.

 However, we do reactivation drives. Inactive customers that have bought from us before, that have made enquiries and did not buy, we will follow through to the best of our ability for if customers are well taken care of, they will give good reviews about the company and send referrals your way.

Are you interested in the International Development aspect of things?

I also have enjoyed a few grants- everybody is open to international recognition and grants if they are aligned with your vision as not all grants will align with what you are doing even if it is in the same sector. I am a laureate of the French government through Digital 1000 Africa. We also got a grant from Facebook after Covid.

Tell me more about the French thing

 Initially, this happened in the heat of Covid. We were supposed to all travel to France and have a get-together but it did not hold; we first had training and they bring in local banks to talk to you, see opportunities and how they can partner with entrepreneurs about trademarking and processing your business, legal structures businesses need to thrive and upscale.

We had diplomats who came in from France for an event and there, we were to showcase what we do to the group.

What would you like to see in the next five years in the Agric sector in general and your business in particular?

In general, more support from the government.  Some government agencies or even private institutions will say, ‘’even if your business is at the idea level, come one, come all’’ I do not think that works because idea backed by action will be a better approach because if I have started and you can see what I am doing based on my strength, then you should know I need all the external support so I can grow faster.

It is easier for someone to help and there are so many of us who have already started and need that support. I can say for sure, that making NAFDAC processes easier has really been helpful in recent times. I came on board with the palliatives NAFDAC offered during the lockdown and I tell anyone I speak to that I do not need cash, I need equipment. 

I have had people buy into my vision and leave more structured corporate organizations to do something maybe more exciting to them or pretty new they can actually buy into.

So many people I started with that have closed shop and bootstrapped because there were outbreaks, most are indebted and there is no form of support or palliative to actually weather that challenge also.

It actually makes sense to consider insurance as an entrepreneur while waiting for support from the government so as to cushion the effects of a bad experience. It is supported in terms of training, equipment finance and training staff because human capital is a big challenge and there are a lot of people to be trained, but most are not trainable

 There should be provision for more facilities to train people so if the need for farmworkers arises, these facilities can provide trained farmhands.

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