How to start Ugu Farming (Pumpkin Leaf) Business In Nigeria
Fluted Pumpkin: The Jackpot Of Vegetable Farming
Ugu is the name Igbos’ gave to pumpkin leave in Akwa Ibom State it is called nkong ubong. It is a vegetable gotten from the planting of ugu seeds. Ugu is mostly used in cooking soup and pottage foods although some people extract fluid from it (mixing it with other things such as milk, malt drink, tomatoes etc.) to drink for health reasons.
There is a ready market for ugu because it is widely consumed; any vegetable that is a day to day food is a worthy venture to do.
WHY YOU SHOULD VENTURE INTO UGU FARMING BUSINESS
Vegetables generally are highly demanded because of its rate of consumption. Ugu leaves are the highest consumed vegetable followed by waterleaf etc as such the market for it is very high.It is a short-term plant meaning you can easily get your money in the shortest possible time.You will always sell irrespective of the season you plant your ugu.It requires little experience to start.
You will make good money because you can plant 3times in a year.
LAND PREPARATION IN UGU FARMING
Ugu farming does well on a sandy-loamy soil. Clear the land you are using from every stump and debris. Till the soil if it is hard for easy penetration of roots, good aeration and proper germination of the seed. Pour organic manure on the soil if that is what you are using (cow, goat, chicken, pig dung etc.).
Some people make bed for ugu this is also equally very good. The manure should be the ones that are already treated; you can check my post on ‘pepper farming’ to know how you can treat dung.
PREPARING UGU SEED FOR PLANTING
Cut the ugu pod, bring out the seeds and dry them under sun for only a day or two, do not allow them to be over dried in other to preserve the viability of the seed. The drying of the seeds helps them to be resistant to pest which could have eaten them off in the soil, it also prevent them from decaying.
Don’t dry the seeds that have already sprouted, the sun will kill them.
PLANTING OF UGU
After dressing the sol the next thing to do is to plant. This should be done very early in the morning or late evening, you can also plant when the weather is cool and calm. Plant 2-3 seeds per hole.
Dig the hole 4-5cm into the soil and plant the ugu by standing it with the mouth buried to the soil. Cover the hole with a little sand; be sure the ugu is well covered in other not to expose it to the sun. The seed spacing should be 500cm-1m. A hectare will require 10,000 seeds while an acre will require 4,000 seeds.
ALSO
You can get four seedlings out of one ugu seed. Here is how to do it;
Take a pocket and filled it with compost manure mixed with saw dust put in the ugu seeds and cover bring them out after 5-7 days break the seedlings into 2 sides each and further cut them into 2 with knife but make sure each has roots in them.
IRRIGATION IN UGU FARMING
After planting the seeds, start irrigating the ugu farm and its surroundings every two days morning and evening. Except there are rains then you can stop to irrigate but during dry season or drought intensive irrigation is required.
This means you need a source of water either well or bore hole depending on the resources in your hands. But if your farm is close to river this is an added advantage to you. Drip and sprinkler irrigation is good for use.
WEEDING/PEST CONTROL
Early weeding is the best thing to do, when you delay weeding the leaves will turn yellowish because the weeds are feeding on the nutrients on the soil too. Most times when ugu leaves is deficient of nitrogen they change their colour from green to yellow.
The ugu will become a safe haven for insects and pests that are on the weed.. I will advice the use of manual because the use of herbicides may not be successful due to the crawling nature of ugu, it always covers the ground.
Care must be taken not to trample on the ugu plant because during the second weeding you will have to be lifting the ugu up to weed.
Most diseases that affects ugu are airborne and most of the insects are boring ones example is caterpillar. Mix fungicide and insecticide in small quantity and use for pest and insects control, example of such insecticides to use are sharp shooter, maxi-force, scorpion etc.
Organically, use neem oil mixed with water to spray on your ugu plant or you soak neem leaves in water for 10 or more days and sprinkle on your farm.
FERTILIZER APPLICATION
Apply livestock dung on the farm before planting, after 4 weeks and after 6 weeks. For those who wants to use inorganic fertilizer, NPK 15 15 15 and urea is good to use. But organic fertilizer has proven to be the best and safest.
Since harvesting is done frequently there is need to give the soil enough food to eat so that the ugu can keep growing well.
PROFITABILITY IN UGU FARMING
You may be tempted to ask, is ugu farming profitable as said? The answer is a capital ‘YES’. Believe me it is a very lucrative business if proper farming management practice are put in place. You can make 100 times over in this business on investment returns.
For an acre of land if you spend #300,000 in raising ugu farm you may realise about #800,000 all things being equal. You do the planting once after that you will be harvesting every 3 days or 3 times a week for about 3 months.
You can make the money you invested in about a month excluding land and other properties. Everything about ugu is money, the fresh leaves are harvested for sale and the hard leaves can be used for cooking soup as well. This kind of soup is mostly cooked by Akwa Ibom people. The strong ugu is cut, pound and washed with water, leaving only the leaves for cooking. Ugu seeds are boiled and eaten as foodThe pods are sold for money. You can bring the seeds out and sell it that way. A seed is sold for #50 or more depending on location and season. Imagine realizing 10,000 seeds from your pods. A pod contains averagely 58s seeds it could be more for the bigger pods it can even be up to 100 and 40 for the smaller pods.
In case you are restocking your farm or expanding you won’t have to spend money again on buying seeds you can only take out from your harvested pods.
For more profits dry season ugu farming is the best you will make 3 times more than the amount you would have made during raining season. That is why most ugu farmers always prepare themselves for aggressive dry season ugu farming.
HOW LONG WOULD IT TAKE BEFORE CLEARING MY UGU FARM
Some people plant ugu for only the pods if this is your intention then the harvesting of the ugu should be reduced to only 3 times. For others who are still harvesting even when the pods are out should be careful not to destroy them. At this time you can only cut the ugu which flowers because they will never fruit. You can clear the place after the pods are matured.
HARVESTING
Start harvesting two weeks after planting or when the stems are long; use your hand to cut the stem a little distance away from the bottom of the stem position your hands where you have the nodes and cut.
You can use sharp object like knife to cut if you are not experience on hand cutting. The pod is ripe for harvest when the tendrils are dried; sometimes the fall off on their own on the other hand you have to cut them off.
A stem of ugu can produce more than 1 pod and if the pollination was well done there are chances that about 75% of the stem will produce.
MARKETABILITY
People will come looking for you to buy because the demand is 10times higher than the supply. Meanwhile you can locate market women, restaurants, hotels, bukas and eateries to sell to, they buy in bulk.
Feed your ugu plant to grow well because consumers prefer ugu that are fresh, dark green with wide or big leaves.
UGU FARMING WITH OTHER VEGETABLES
You can plant waterleaf, scent leaf, curry leaf, spinach etc. on ugu farm this will give additional profits because it doesn’t command different treatment other than the ones given to ugu plant.
If you are planting the hybrid kind of seed you don’t have to trellis the ugu plant because they are well positioned to grow underground but for the local breeds you just have to trellis them if indeed you need the pods.
The pro of the local breed is that they are very resistant to pest and diseases.
BENEFITS OF UGU LEAVES AND SEEDS
Ugu increases haemoglobin concentration in the body, that’s why some people call it ‘blood tonic’.
It contains antioxidants which is very good for the body and also reduces cholesterol.
Ugu contains properties that lowers glucose as such can prevent diabetes.
The oil extracted from the seeds is good in semen improvement.
IN CONCLUSION
Some people don’t bother to raise beds which is not bad depending on the kind of soil and environment. In a place like Akwa Ibom State beds may not be necessary. But for proper management and good statistics raising of beds will be very useful.
For instance there is a woman who has 30 beds, she makes #8,000 from a bed in 3 weeks. This is because she carries out her harvest every 3 weeks, 30 multiply by 8000 is equal to #240,000 you too can achieve that even more if you determine.
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Snail, also is high in protein (12-16%) and irons (45-50 mg/kg), low in fat, and contains almost all the amino acids needed by humans.
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Venturing Into Snail Farming Busines
Snail farming is a lucrative venture that is yet to be appreciated in the Agro industry. Very smart few in the business discovered this, and are making a fortune from it.
Many people see snails here and there. Some people take it as meat. But quite a number don’t know how to go about rearing them.
This is made worse because snails, which belong to the family of animal called MOLLUSCA, is a hermaphrodite- It has both the female and male sexual organs; so one cannot really distinguish between the male and female specie of it.
Snail, also is high in protein (12-16%) and irons (45-50 mg/kg), low in fat, and contains almost all the amino acids needed by humans.
However, the Smart few in the snail farming business over time keeps the farming methodology very secret to themselves. But the plain truth is that snail farming is as easy as ABC.
The only thing the snails may constantly demand from you is your attention and care. They hardly fall sick. You don’t have to buy their food and you may not have to spend much to build a Pen (House) for them.
The beauty of it all is that the snails reproduce rapidly; they are capable of producing hundreds of eggs, which hatch into snails. It is now possible to produce 1,000,000 snails worth more than N5 million twice a year.
This is made possible because of the availability of very highly prolific ACHATINA ACHATINA species of snails, which lay 200-400 in one batch 2-3 times a year.
Income Earning Opportunities
•The demand for snail is higher than the supplies as such the market potential of snail is inexhaustible, locally and internationally.
•This technology has been approved to be most lucrative farming venture presently, as it requires far less capital investment, while much profit is being generated in a considerable short period. It has lower risk compared to other livestock farming.
• Snail is an export commodity, which has value next to gold in overseas countries. It is a foreign exchange income earner of our days. Our climate is one of the best in snail breeding.
•Snail farming in Nigeria requires small capital and the running cost is very low, hence their feeds are very local
•No stress, no time consuming, no odour, no noise and no irritation.
The Snail Market
If you rear snail in commercial quantity, hotels, fast food restaurants and super stores will be your regular customers. They will only need your assurance of regular supply per week.
There is also good market for snail meat in the international market if only you can do a good packaging.
There are different ways to package snail, fresh or baked for both local and international market; you can make millions of Naira from this vast and inexhaustible market.
Snail farmers are making huge profit as the global demand for the delicacy increases.
In Nigeria the prices of raw, matured snails goes for N250 to N600 Depending on the size.
However, the annual demand for snail in Nigeria is about 7.5million kg annually. The international trade in snails is flourishing in Europe and North America.
The United State America imports more than $4million worth of snails annually from all over the world, including Nigeria. France also requires about 15000 metric tons of the delicacy annually.
The snails reproduce rapidly. They are capable of producing more than 300 eggs, which hatch into snails. It is now possible to produce 1,000,000 snails worth more than N20 million twice a year.
This is made possible because of the availability of very highly prolific ACHATINA ACHATINA species of snails, which lay 200-400 in one batch 2-3timesayear.
Snail meat has been consumed by humans worldwide since prehistoric times. It is high in protein (12-16%) and irons (45-50 mg/kg), low in fat, and contains almost all the amino acids needed by humans. Snails can also be helpful to Asthmatic patients. For more information on how to farm snail and source for good species you can contact us
call 08030485016
call 08030485016
There are several reasons why many are turning to pig farming to secure financial independence. One peculiar characteristic of pigs is that they bear many offspring at a time and multiply fast. 
