Making a business plan for your onion

Making an Onion business plan

All good businesses need planning, onion farming is not an exception. Plan well and you will make more money. A business plan keeps you focused on your aims and goals.It helps you see where you are coming from, where you are now and where you want your business to go.

A business plan will help you get a loan from the bank, SACCOs, friends and family. It also tells you what your business will look like in 3 to 5 years to come.

Step 1: Business summary and description

One of the first things you need to do is write a business summary and description. This will help you and others understand what you hope to achieve:

• Business Summary: Why do you want to plant Onions? Where? How? How much will you need?
• Business Description: What is happening today in Onion farming?How can you do it? What might happen in the future in your area? How will it make money?

Step 2: Production Plan

Always have several onion plots planted at different times. This ensures you have a continuous supply of onions to sell. Having just one land, planted at the same time means you will have nothing to sell as you wait for them to mature or after you harvest.

Sometimes it is good to have more than one business. Try keeping chickens or dairy cows so that you have a constant supply of eggs or milk to sell.

Step 3: Marketing Plan

An important step is identifying a buyer for your produce, to ensure you are catering for a demand. This will ensure that you make returns on your investment. Look at the market. What is happening in the market where you intend to sell your produce?

What Competition is there? If you do have competitors, you need to think about how you can be different and deliver better value to your customers. What will you do if competition comes in?

Take the following 4 P's into consideration:

• Price: Sell at a good price. Find out how much your neighbors are selling onions for. If your price is too high, customers will not buy from you.
• Product: What is your product? In this case, it is clean and fresh onions.
• Promotion: How do people know that you sell onions? You need to promote it. A poster at the gate? Telling people at church?
• Place: Where can people buy your onions? From your house? Do you deliver? online or social media?

For more information on finding markets click here.

Step 4: Financial Plan

Production and marketing cost money. How much money do you need? Will you need a loan? Do you have savings that you can use?

You will need to draw up a budget. Plan your budget to borrow, run and grow your business, save and know how much you can pay yourself.

Step 5: Operations Plan

How will the business run day to day? Will you need people to help? Will you need to service your equipment and do you need transport?

Step 6: Risk Assessment

What can go wrong? It is important to think hard about any risks i.e. What will you do if your crop harvest is bad and you lose all your produce? How will you cope with the loss? Maybe you need to get insurance incase of crop failure?