A Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) executive and owner of JOVANA Farms, Mr. Arinze Onebunne, has urged youths to take up career in Small-Medium Enterprises like snail farming to make themselves self employed, rather than being idle and waiting for paid employment.
He said there are opportunities all over in farming business like, the snail, fish, goat, mushroom and grasscutter farming, which, according to him, can be undertaken through partnership with little start-up capital.
Onebunne, who made this known in a chat with newsmen at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, Friday noted that so many youths who have the potential for business have refused to exploit the farming business, but are waiting for paid employment.
Giving little background about his snail farming business, Onebunne said he started breeding snails indoors in a climate-controlled environment, before he graduated to producing snails in an outdoor free-range system, with temperature controlled environment, to speed up the breeding process.
“The system ensures that snails can be harvested at the age of 18 months, instead of 24 months, and can be harvested all year round.
“With its minimal space requirement, indoor snail breeding is now a worth while profit-generating option for small-scale farmers”, he said.
Narrating how he became Interested in the business, Onebunne said a hotelier friend convinced him that snail supply is inadequate, for restaurants in Nigeria, especially the giant land snail, hence he ventured into it.
The Jovana farms Chief executive also highlighted a lot of advantages in snail farming, saying that 90,000 snails can be grown in a year on three plots of land, adding that a giant snail can be sold to a restaurant at N500.

Corlins Walter