Successful Livestock farmers have some qualities in common, but some unsuccessful farmers don’t know some of these qualities. I was opportune to give a presentation to a particular group of individuals. During the question time, a young man asked, “How can one become a successful livestock farmer?” This is a question some people intending to invest in livestock farming ask. Before I continue, I want you to know that becoming a successful livestock farmer is not very hard but it is not too easy. It takes a level of commitment before someone can be successful in his or her farming endeavor or career. It is one thing for someone to establish a livestock farm and it is another thing for such person to make profits running the farm. There are many cases of people who have established a farm and at a particular period, the farm closed down. Why? It is simply because they were not successful in running such farm to a level of earning profits.

There are some qualities/characteristics that a profit-minded livestock farmer must possess before s/he can be successful. They include:

1. Hardworking

So you expect a lazy farmer to be successful? Never! It is not possible! You must be diligent or hardworking before you can make profit or succeed in your farming business. There is no shortcut to this. It’s either you are hardworking or reap the reward of laziness.

2. Highly Committed

Commitment in this perspective covers a lot of thing. It is simply being faithful to yourself and your business. It is readiness to do or give whatever it takes for your livestock farming business to be successful. An uncommitted farmer will find it difficult to have a good yield or profit.

3. Always Thirsty For More Knowledge

I have never seen anyone that knows it all. For a livestock farmer to be successful, s/he must not rely on his or her own knowledge alone. A successful l farmer always searches for knowledge and tips on how s/he can grow his or her farm. Successful farmers are ready to spend money on modern information by buying Ebooks, Videos, Consultancy Service as well as traveling to see how things are done. Even when money is not involved, some farmers still find it difficult to use the Internet to gather free information. Did you expect those kinds of farmers to be successful? I doubt it. So acquiring more knowledge is one of the things done by a successful livestock farmer.

4. Always Proactive

Being proactive is very important to your success in livestock farming. There are livestock farmers that will never take any step until they are faced with a problem or disaster. Why must you wait till a bad event occurs before you take the right measure? A successful livestock farmer will always initiate change that will better or save his or her farm rather than waiting till the time the unexpected occurs. One way to be proactive is by checking for vulnerabilities on your farm and getting them fixed before it is too late.

5. Highly Disciplined

Yes! A successful livestock farmer must be discipline and should inculcate positive values that favor his or her business. You shouldn’t expect a farmer who encourages stealing or pilfering to achieve success. The employees of successful farmers know their bosses are disciplined and wouldn’t condone bad attitudes from them. For example, you shouldn’t accept late coming, laziness, pilfering and other forms of indiscipline from your attendants or farm workers.

6. Goal-minded

This is another major characteristic of a successful livestock farmer. A successful farmer sets achievable goals for his/her farm and work towards meeting those goals. He or she has already visualized where his or her farm would be in 1, 2, or 3 years’ time. A goalless livestock farmer is automatically an unsuccessful livestock farmer. Why? He or she will just be operating aimlessly and there would be nothing to use as a benchmark to measure his or her success.

7. Not Easily Discouraged

If you are easily discouraged, then forget about becoming successful. Becoming successful in life requires boldness and perseverance. Failing once does not mean you will fail next time. When you fail, you have gotten an experience, and all you need to do is figure out your errors or mistakes and avoid them next time. But if you get discouraged and refuse to continue, then you have tagged yourself to be a failure. For instance, you bought 400 broiler chicks from a reputable hatchery. Due to some reasons, you lost 80% of them to Newcastle Disease or Coccidiosis. As a result of the loss incurred, you promised yourself not to raise chickens again. Whereas, there are farmers that were once in your shoe but they didn’t get discouraged. They worked on their past mistakes and they became successful afterwards. Seriously, failure shouldn’t discourage you. I want you to know that it is one of those things that have happened even to successful livestock farmers.

These qualities are numerous but I have just picked up some of the salient ones. If you really want to be profitable in your farming business, then you need to have the qualities/characteristics discussed above.

Perhaps, you know some other things successful farmers have, you can share with us.