By Fatima Muraina

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Introduction:

Yam farming business is a profitable agribusiness venture which you can start on a medium to large scale.

Consumer demand for yam is very high in Nigeria though it has high production costs.

Starting Yam Farming:

Land Acquisition: You can either rent land or buy if farmlands are cheap in your location. Land can be rented by visiting farming communities and looking for the village heads or land owners who want to lease their lands and also rent from agricultural lands through your local government secretariat or state’s ministry of agriculture. Ensure security for your farmland.

Land Preparation

 Land is prepared for yam farming by clearing and heaping or ridge making. It is usually down before commencement of rains or before rains become steady. This is usually between December to February/March. Heaping or ridging is done immediately or done once the rains become steady around March-June.

Seedlings:

Yam setts or seed yams are use for planting. Yam setts are bigger yam tubers divided into smaller units for panting purposes. Seed yams are smaller yams which usually accompany bigger yams during harvest. Seed yams are also gotten during the second harvesting of yams.

When dividing yam tubers into setts make sure they are within 300 to about 600grams. note that, the bigger the yam setts the better the chance of having bigger yam tubers. Dust or dip your yam setts and seed yams in insecticides or biopesticides like wood ash and/or neem extracts.

 Planting

You start planting when rainfall is steady and the soil is adequately soaked.  Planting when the rains are not steady requires mulching the heaps to avoid drying and spoilage of planted seed yams. Planting spacing for yam is normally 1m by 1m which gives 10,000 stands per hectare. However, farmers may work around the spacing to increase stands per hectare depending on the fertility of the soil and scale of production.

You can make use of sack bags filled with fertility soil to plant

 Yam staking :

Once the yam starts sprouting and the yam vines growing, you have to stake the yam vines so that they can get more sunlight which will convert to bigger tubers. 

Staking increases tuber yield 34-105% over un-staked yam. Staking could be done using bamboo and ropes of sticks.

Weeding

    Weeding is necessary to prevent competition and stiffening of the yam crop. Weeding should be done manually or using certain selective herbicides like Diuron.

Harvesting

    Yam takes about 6 to 7 months from planting to harvesting. Harvesting starts around November and can stretch till February.

Marketing

Marketing is vital to make your expected profit. Most times farmers work so hard and have nothing to show for it. This is as a result of poor marketing strategies.

You develop a strategy to market your yams for profitability.

 * Do market research to find out the current price

*Target the wholesale buyers by yourself.

* Do not auction off your goods to avoid ripping off your efforts.