CONSULTANCY

JB Akin Owen has its niche around horticultural and agronomic service provision.  We advise a range of commercial businesses, farms, value chain actors including producers’ organizations and public sector organizations on aspects relating to food safety, crop protection, the development and maintenance of their farms/crops, pack houses and or other domestic hand-on engagement such as gardens.

We also provide technical advice and business support services BSS; the role may involve but not limited to business consultancy on issues regarding the successful development of farms, farm operations, products and resources, and on finding effective solutions to problems for both organic and conventional farming ideologies.

Our Scope:  

• Technical, whole farm planning and follow through with implementation
• Business and agronomic consulting.
• Economics and management decision making
• Some technical advice but most generic, advice on whole farm planning and grant/credit application 
• Management and business planning
• Farm scouting, spray management, nutrition, water management, yield mapping,
• varietal choice, planting schedules
• Agricultural marketing, crop marketing, commodity price risk management
• Designing irrigation system
• Farm auditing
• Organize presentations, demonstrations, training, and farm walks for clients, colleagues, partnership organizations and professional bodies

We also help in:

• Designing your pest management template,
• Organize and conduct field trials to find solutions to clients’ problems
• Run a TNA (Training Need Assessment) for your team and provide Capacity Building training CB&T intervention wherever there is  short coming,
• Design and develop your farm layout in an integrated structure 
• Design succession planting calendar to cater for pre-ordered supply from customers
• Beds layout map to facilitate crop rotation
• Team designation and weekly schedule 
• Field layout and labeling 
• Record keeping templates
• Human resources management

Clients may include:

• Farmers (including local farmers)
• NGOs and Donors organizations working on agricultural developmental projects
• Export oriented commercial growers 
• Leisure and conservation organizations or public bodies involved in the restoration, operation and maintenance of parks
• Botanical and public gardens and other public spaces.

Our mode of action MOA

As a horticultural consultant, we:

• visit clients on site, identify their business or technical problems and investigate causes
• run TNAs and CB&T
• analyse yields and the financial returns of existing commercial horticultural operations
• prepare new or modified operational strategies and business plans
• analyse horticultural and operational costs and the benefits resulting from existing or proposed public amenities and leisure locations
• conduct environmental assessments, taking into consideration the environmental impact of any developments
• design layouts and plan planting programmes for ornamental gardens or tree planting programmes with local authorities
• design supply chain systems and support the infrastructure for processing, storage and transport
• formulate solutions, plan and organize trials to assess their effectiveness
• organize presentations, technical visits and demonstrations
• help clients meet the requirements of legislative regulations concerning quality, hygiene and employment
• provide expert opinion for planning appeals and litigation
• communicate with clients, colleagues and professional groups, through briefings, technical and operational reports and presentations
• write advisory leaflets, specifications and technical manuals
• carry out marketing activities to promote clients
• maintain essential administrative records, including budgets and accounts

Remuneration

Much of our horticultural consultancy/engagement is project-based, with fees calculated according to time spent in this order: A daily rate or an agreed fee is negotiated for advice given and reports produced within a time frame.

Our charging pattern varied; it depends on the task we are asked to undertake. Some of the common charging patterns could be seen below:

• Flat rate
• Cost/hour
• Cost/service or task
• Cost/farm size

Working hours

Working hours vary with client demand and may be long and unsocial. Part-time work and career breaks are possible once a strong client base has been established.

Our Team

Team leader: Talabi Olufolajimi is a trainer, an agribusiness facilitator/Consultant and agribusiness coach with passion for excellence. He was trained in the field of agriculture from one of the most prestigious universities in Nigeria: Obafemi Awolowo University with a degree qualification among others including host of certificates from foreign institutes (including MITx) on business management and poverty eradication. He is also a certified agribusiness coach by ICRA. He has attended a number of trainings and workshops among which was SSP training of trainers by Crop-life Middle East/Africa. He is a certified trainer using Nigeria Agricultural Enterprise Curricula NAEC tools on agricultural business development and also a certified trainer by COLEACP on food safety & communication and training techniques (Basic + FTW method)

Our Clients

• Zanababs Farms, Ilesha
• TINWOT farms, Ikorodu (http://picbear.com/tinwotorganicfarm) 
• IFDC2SCALE Nigeria (http://2scale.org/country/nigeria) 
• G4 Outlet, Lekki
• BATNF, ADI project
• Agronet Ibadan

                                                  

                                                  CALL FOR INTERVENTIONS
Training Need Assessment 

Are you having fundamental technical problems or staffs functionality issues on your farm? Is your farm enterprise deliverables not being met? Do you think your farm workers/food processing company’s staffs may need a sort of capacity building training with a view to increase their efficiency? Do you think you are having problem identifying what sort of training they may require in this direction? If yes; then you have come in contact with a consulting firm who can help you solve the problem. We would run a TNA and also facilitate required training after worth with our team of expert to helping your workers identify short-coming and also build their productive capacity. 

Please, do connect to get more details on this.

Coaching

Guiding people toward solving their own problem is better than solving it for them. You may have a group of workers who are truly endow and greatly committed to the task at hand but yet the deliverables aren’t still met? Perhaps, you know a group of local farmers who are experiencing one form of career/farming challenge or the other? It may even be that you are interested in farming as a business either as part time, full time and or as fall back after retirement? Against this foregoing backdrop, you may require a sense of direction towards making an informed decision to spending the hard earned money. You have come into the right arms; we can coach you to making informed decision in this direction. Therefore, you can call for our coaching session at your pleasure. Contact us for detail please.