In Alwaza, farming pepper is making people richer

In fact, some people cannot enjoy their meals without the taste of red hot pepper. Although the nutritional benefits of pepper remain debatable in the health cycle, its consumption-either with roasted meat, in soup, pepper soup, and many forms- is high in many homes, restaurants, hotels and barbecues  across the country. Many farmers who see […]

In fact, some people cannot enjoy their meals without the taste of red hot pepper. Although the nutritional benefits of pepper remain debatable in the health cycle, its consumption-either with roasted meat, in soup, pepper soup, and many forms- is high in many homes, restaurants, hotels and barbecues  across the country.
Many farmers who see opportunity in the product are making good money through its cultivation in both rain-fed and through irrigation.
When Daily Trust visited Alwaza village in Doma, Nasarawa State, it discovered that young farmers-mostly students- were putting more money into their pockets through farming and trading in pepper.
Although it is cultivated only during the raining season in the village, young farmers are strengthening their resource base through it. In fact it is the first thing to be cultivated at the beginning of rainy season.
Daily Trust spoke with some of the farmers who explained the many benefits of farming pepper in the area and the consequences for any student not having a pepper farm.
Women, both married and the single,own different sizes of pepper farms from which they earn money on a weekly basis.
Yusufu Gomna told this reporter that farming pepper is a very significant part of their life. “Virtually every young man has a pepper farm in this village,” he noted. “You can make a lot of money if your pepper does well in the farm,” he added.
Gomna said young men in the village make hundreds of thousands of naira selling the pepper. He said some harvest of up to 15 bags which is sold at N2,800 each, adding that this is done every week for at least two or three months.
“If the year brings good harvest for you, a lot of money can enter your pocket,” he stressed adding that many young men and women are paying their school fees themselves from money get from the sale of the product.  
An NCE holder, Gomna stressed that he will farm the vegetable every year until he leaves the village for something more important, explaining that coming home to maintain a farm will be extremely difficult. Otherwise “pepper is something worth farming here.”
Ovey Ayuba is a HND student with the College of Agriculture in Lafia. He told the reporter that pepper has made many people achieve success in the village.
Ayuba said that he was able to pay his school fees because of the pepper and yam he farms. “You know, yam and groundnuts you harvest them once during the season;but not so with pepper. Once your pepper begins to ripe, you will continue to harvest it every week for the next three months if the farm is fertile. That means every week the farmer will have something in his or her pocket.”
Pepper helps Ayuba to overcome many financial challenges that will have forced him to stop his education.“I am now the bread winner of the family through this product,” he said.
“Many people here made a lot of money this year. Although I could not make money like last year, but I thank God for what I am still getting from the farm. At least I am able to do one or two things in the house,” he said.
Rikichi Ibrahim is also a young farmer with a Diploma in Law. He told Daily Trust that he made N10,000 from the sale of the pepper. “If some of these young men know how to invest their money, some of them would have got a lot by now,” he maintained.
According to him, every Saturday he will realize some significant amount of money. “Because that is the day I harvest my pepper. I collected over N10,000 today. This pepper helps us a lot here if not, many of these people would be suffering by now,” he also said.
Alex Yohanna, Luka Ozigi and Commissioner Yakubu, the last two NCE holders, are pepper traders in the village. They buy from the farmers and take it for sale in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital. Sometimes if the quantity is high, they take it to Lagos where it is sold at a more attractive price.
One of them said he made a profit of N400,000 in one of his trips to Lagos. “But the business is risky as well. Sometimes you can make good money, at other times you will make huge losses especially if the product floods the market that day,” Luka told Daily Trust.
“Well, sometimes you gain, sometimes you lose. This is business but you have to be wise and study the market, especially if you notice excess of the product in the state, because there are other places around where the product is also cultivated,” Yakubu explained.
“How is this vegetable cultivated?” The reporter put the question to Francis Ali and Elisha Usman.  “It begins by raising the seedlings through nursery. We usually raise ours at the river banks behind the village. This usually takes two and half months, from February to early May when we experience the beginning of rainfall,” Usman said.
“At the beginning of rainfall, we transplant it from the nursery beds to the cultivated land where it will be maintained for seven weeks after which, you begin to harvest the pepper,” Francis expatiated.
“The product has good monetary value. It will cost you less than N6,000 to cultivate a hectare which is the size of a standard football field. You can make a lot of money from it; but it needs adequate care by the farmer,” Usman stressed.
They agreed that farming pepper has now become an integral part of their lives in Alwaza village.