In Africa, agriculture is one of the most common economic activity. Many families depend on agriculture for their daily bread. In Kenya, agriculture contributes more than 25% to the GDP.
Venturing into agribusiness may prove to be a lucrative business that can provide you with financial independence. Other than being a source of income, agriculture can provide consistent and quality food to growers and their families.
It is for this reason that most people decide to venture into avenues to make money from agriculture even though they do not own any farm.
Agriculture is a low risk investment which may have promising returns to a dedicated farmer. But what about those that do not want to be directly involved in the farm? There are ways.
Some people simply do not have a passion in anything to do with farming, but they want ways to earn passive income. Making agriculture your side hustle does not necessary mean owning or leasing a farm.
The following are some of the ways that you can make money from farming without actually owning a farm:
- By investing in a farm: you can just provide capital to someone that really loves farming but does not have enough resources. You will agree to them regarding how to split profits or repaying your money with interest. Nowadays there are some online farms that you can invest in without physical presence.
- By participating in the exportation of farm produce: Rather than actively being the one produce farm produce, you can partner with farmers and offer them a ready market for their farm produce. In such away, you would have participated in farm business without being the owner. The most common exports from Kenya are tea, coffee, and horticultural products.
- Selling of farm produce: you can also earn money from agriculture by buying and selling farm produce in bulk to consumers. You get these products at a cheaper rate directly from the farm and you can sell it at the price of your choice to retailers and consumers. You can either chose to be a distributor who partners with a farm to sell or be a retailer. In either way, you earn enough income from the business.
- Farmland harvesting of yields: You can make money from agriculture by helping farmers to harvest their crops and fruits once they are ready. Most large scale farmers do not have all the farming equipment, including modern harvesters. Owning one may generate guaranteed income as opposed to a farmer who may make losses.
- Packaging and storing of farm produce: You can offer safe storage for farm produce. While storing them, you can also offer packaging services if the owner intends to distribute them to different places.
- Being an agronomy consultancy: agronomy provides research background knowledge for farmers. With the advancement in technology, farmers need consultants to help them keep updated with new trends in farming, tips, and best practices.
- Providing farm transportation services: Most farmers don’t have what is needed for the farm produce to reach the market. Consequently, they resort to hiring transportation services to help them supply. You can purchase a fleet of trucks and partner with farmers. You may go to places like Kisii, Meru or any rural area and transport sugarcane, avocados, bananas, etc. to urban centers.
- Participate in online farming: You can do “online farming investment” by choosing a particular crop and financing its production for a specified period. Once harvesting has been done, the profits are split to you (similar to dividends from stocks).
- By selling farm equipment to farmers: There are many things you can sell to farmers. These include, and are not limited to, fertilizers, farm machinery, seeds, seedlings, and equipment.
- By offering lessons and teaching farming classes: If you are a skilled farmer, you can offer lessons online to people that need them the most. You can offer physical or online teaching courses, what you choose will depend on what you are comfortable with.
Bottom line
As you have seen, there are many farm related business ideas you can venture into without owning any piece of land. Some of them require offering farming services that require little to no capital, while others may need large initial investments.