Palm Plantation – A Suitable Investment For Nigerian
Retirees
Retirement to an average Nigerian employee is a nightmare.
Unfortunately, it is an end that must come when it must come. The crux of the
matter is that many are not afraid of old age, neither do the abhor retirement
rather they are afraid of the source of income in the years ahead. It is no
exaggeration that many employees are aliens to investments and businesses and
they cannot start apprenticeship when they are above age sixty. Thus the source
of income in the coming years after retirement is quizzical.
Investing in a Red Oil Palm plantation is one of the
recommended investments for many in this bracket. Opting for this investment
has a lot of advantages over thousands of other businesses available in to
them. At their age many cannot move about like they did when they were younger
most especially due to their age. An investment like this suits them with
style. Such investments are totally a village affair – it is domiciled nearest
to their retirement abode. One of the reasons that we strongly recommend this
is that many would be retirees owns lands in the villages while others can
easily buy a few plots at a pocket friendly rate.
Investing in a Red Oil Palm plantation will never hitch the
retiree against their would be managers. The supervision is less hectic
generally. In the villages, the needed workforce to keep the plantation on
going is always available. The village women and lots of youths could be
co-opted as your workforce with some symbiotic arrangement. The newly planted
palm seedling we recommend are the hybrid specie whose maturity is fast – in
three [3] years they have started fruiting and by the fifth [5] year, it must
have commenced massive all year round fruiting with above average bunches. Most
importantly, there are recommended styles of management to be adopted by the
retirees which makes the conversion of the produce to cash quite easy.
Three [3] plots of lands is suggested for the take-off of
the investment. On three [3] plots of land, you can plant at least 100 stands
of the hybrid Red Oil Palm. The cost of land differs community by community yet
it is affordable especially when its designation is for retirement benefits.
The seedling are offered by governmental agencies available in all Local
Governments Areas across the federation. You can get it cheapest at NIFOR Edo
state and ITTA Ibadan, Oyo state. A seedling costs between N150 – N450
depending on your source. If we use the highest range N450 to calculate, its
total cost will be about N45,000.00 [forty five thousand naira] only.
Mention was made of a symbiotic relationships that can help
the retiree to manage his or her investment with ease. Some families domiciled in
the villages are happy when land is offered to them for free to farm on it,
once you get someone like this, their farming exercise will keep the farm neat.
A good sum of money is expended for series of needs at the early stages which
may not be easily captured yet they are easily borne by the retiree in view of
the future gain.
When the trees are full grown and fruiting optimally, the
expected monthly income is above average. For many of the suggested hybrid
specie, they have bunches of palm trees on them for about eight [8] months of a
calendar year. Thus a plantation owner is bound to harvest from it all year
round. Here is a simple picture of income from such an investment monthly:- on
the average, you are most likely to get two [2] bunches of palm fruits from
each tree every two [2] weeks. If we sum the two [2] bunches against 100 stands
of the palm trees we will have two hundred [200] bunches on the average. We
suggest that the retiree should not plan processing the fruits due to the
challenges thus they sell the bunches off to millers. If each bunch is discounted
at the rate of N300 each, it will sum up to N60,000.00 [sixty thousand naira]
bi-weekly. This amount of money comes in twice monthly. Let us say that the
cost of labor to harvest and pile them up costs N30,000.00 [thirty thousand
naira] monthly, when you net it off the total sum of N120,000.00 [one hundred
and twenty thousand naira], you will be left with N90,000.00 [ninety thousand
naira] disposable income monthly.
The sum of N90,000.00 [ninety thousand naira] monthly income
generated by a retirees investment is no small amount of money in today’s
Nigeria. Many can fall on it and live comfortable while waiting for their
monthly pension.
On the other hand, a retiree can opt for processing of the
palm nuts most especially during the peak of dry season when there is always a
glut in supply. To make it a deal, they can contract it out to the locales to
take care of whereby they will deliver fresh red oil to them and keep the palm
kernel for themselves. It could also go this way – they share the oil produce
50-50. The accumulated oil is kept until the next scarcity time frame when it
is sold at a high profit margin.
