By Anthony Omokhodion, Excell Africa Farms. This article responds to the farming argument shared under #FarmWithMufasa and to a public exchange with Adebowale “Debo” Onafowora about guaranteed floor prices. Their contributions prompted the questions below; the analysis and conclusions are mine.
Two recent posts raised the same underlying question: how can farmers earn a viable return? The Farm with Mufasa post examines input costs, buyers and the value added after harvest. Adebowale “Debo” Onafowora’s video argues for a guaranteed floor price. Their proposed answers differ, but the farmer’s profit sits at the centre of both. Rather than respond in two separate comment threads, I have brought the arguments together here.
A farmer works for six months, sells 100 bags of maize and discovers that the proceeds merely cover inputs, labour and transport. The maize becomes mealie meal sold at a much higher shelf price. “Who played who?” asks a widely shared post associated with #FarmWithMufasa.
It is the right question to provoke a discussion. But anger cannot do the accounting for us. Nor can the promise of a guaranteed government price substitute for a customer who can afford the final product.
First, count what actually happened
In the example, 100 bags sold at 250 produce 25,000, equal to the stated 25,000 in costs. That is zero cash surplus on the figures given. If the farmer’s own labour, land, finance and losses have not been fully costed, the economic result may be worse.
The post then says a company makes 80,000 from the same maize because mealie meal sells for 400 per 25 kg. If the original bags are 50 kg, 100 bags contain 5,000 kg: exactly 200 bags of 25 kg before any milling loss. Milling produces different outputs and incurs costs. Thus 80,000 is a theoretical maximum sales figure for mealie meal under an impossible 100% conversion assumption, not the miller’s profit. We should ask for extraction rate, by-product revenue, energy, packaging, transport, retailer margin and unsold stock before declaring who earned what.
This does not excuse poor farm returns. It gives farmers a more useful instrument than indignation: an honest cost and value chain ledger.
Do input suppliers profit while farmers carry the risk?
Often the input seller is paid long before the crop is harvested. The farmer faces weather, pest, yield and price risk. The post is right to call attention to that imbalance. Its prescribed shortcuts, however, are not universal. Saving seed can be sensible for suitable open-pollinated crops; saved hybrid maize will not reliably perform like fresh hybrid seed. Manure can be valuable, but “half manure, half fertiliser” is not a soil-specific nutrient plan. Buying early saves money only when the price, storage conditions and available cash justify it.
Test, record, compare. A farmer gains power by knowing what each input contributes to yield and saleable quality, not by replacing one universal shopping list with another.
Should government guarantee the farmer a floor price?
On a recent farming video I commented that farmers must remain profitable, but disagreed with the call for a “guaranteed floor price.” I raised the British experience of surplus and warned against a system where a farmer delivers grain and waits an intolerable time for state payment. I also opposed fixed consumer pricing. Adebowale “Debo” Onafowora replied with the serious challenge: “which market forces?” He pointed to countries where agricultural trade and prices are shaped by quotas, tariffs and public policy. In another visible reply under the video, he argued that farming cannot be sustainable without a guaranteed floor price.
That challenge deserves an answer. Markets do not operate in a policy vacuum. Canada’s dairy sector, for example, uses planned domestic production, administered pricing and import controls. The United States uses instruments including marketing assistance loans that can help a farmer avoid selling immediately at harvest. These are different designs with different costs and limits; their existence does not prove that a government should buy unlimited harvests at a promised profit. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada describes its dairy system; the US Farm Service Agency explains marketing assistance loans.
My objection is practical. If government becomes the ultimate buyer, who will buy from government, in what quantity and at what price? If households cannot afford the full cost, someone must fund the difference. If the guarantee attracts more production than consumers, processors, exports or a bounded food reserve require, who pays to store and dispose of the excess? A promise on paper is worth little when grading is arbitrary or payment arrives too late. The historical British milk marketing board and the wider European surplus story should be examined carefully rather than merged into one slogan; the board itself ended in 1994. A UK parliamentary review recounts that transition.
Government has work to do: roads, market information, enforceable weights and grades, competition, reliable payment systems, research and infrastructure. A defined food reserve can have a purpose if its quantity, funding, release rules and buyers are clear. I do not support an open-ended guarantee that hides the bill or transfers it to the next generation of farmers and consumers.
Must a farmer find a buyer before planting?
The viral post says a farmer should borrow only when a buyer has already placed an order. For a specific debt-funded production contract, that caution can be sound. It becomes harmful when turned into a command that no farmer should plant before finding a buyer.
I have argued for “farm first, find buyers later” because farming also creates knowledge and markets. We learn what a place can grow, what quality can be achieved, which products emerge and what customers value through production itself. A new farmer cannot always pre-sell an experiment. The discipline is to keep the first experiment at a scale the farm can carry, know the full cost, observe demand and build several ways to sell as the crop develops. An early buyer is welcome; surrendering the entire enterprise to one buyer is not a business model for ownership.
Processing, storage, direct sales and farmer cooperation may expand those choices, but each has a cost and risk. Turning maize into chickens is an additional livestock business with disease, feed and market exposure. Holding tomatoes for a better price may end in spoilage. Calculate the net result in each case before calling it “value addition.”
So who played who?
Sometimes a buyer abuses weak competition. Sometimes a farmer underestimates the cost of production or plants too much of a crop that many others bring to market at once. Sometimes public policy helps; sometimes its promises are unfunded. Those are different problems and they require different remedies. I will not tell a farmer that every input dealer, trader, miller and NGO needs them to remain poor. I will ask whether the farmer can see the accounts and keep meaningful choices.
Profit must be real, the consumer’s buying capacity must be real, and the buyer’s payment must be real. Those three facts belong in the same conversation. Farmers need room to produce and create markets, with transparent information and multiple routes to customers. They should not be trapped by one briefcase buyer or one government buying desk.
An open invitation to continue this conversation
I invite Farm with Mufasa, whose name appears on the circulating post, and my Boss Adebowale “Debo” Onafowora to a live or virtual Podcast AI Matters discussion. The questions are concrete: What price pays the farmer without leaving food unaffordable? Who takes the surplus? What can government guarantee and pay for promptly? How does a farmer create a market while still learning to farm? Let us examine the evidence, the costs and the practical choices together in a live discussion.
Join the discussion: Readers and contributors can reach us through the JustLearn contact page. This is an open invitation, not an announcement that guests or a date have been confirmed.
Attribution note: The maize example and the four “games” framing are credited to the Farm with Mufasa post that prompted this discussion. The floor-price exchange is with Adebowale “Debo” Onafowora. Quotes are brief and used to identify the positions being discussed. This article does not imply that the named contributors endorse its conclusions.