 How are you all doing? I hope you all are doing well. I hope you are ready to be inspired. I hope that the stories that I'm going to share today will make you go out of your own comfort zone and start a farm. You can start a tilapia farm. You can start a sheep farm. You can even start a goat farm if you want to. Start a cow farm because I have been telling you guys that it's time for us to feed ourselves. It's time for us to know where our food is coming from. Agriculture is not for the poor. Agriculture is for you and I. Agriculture is the future and who are the future of Africa? The youth of Africa. I mean you and I. We have to venture into agriculture now before it's too late. Okay, so what am I here to do today? I am here to inspire you with another beautiful story from the Jalo Farms. This is a young man who used to live in the UK, decided to move back to the continent, his own motherland, to start a farm. Why farm it? We need to find out. So you know what you need to do for me? Like the video. It's very important. I just realized that you guys keep on watching the video and you don't like it. Change your ways. Anytime I upload a video, like the video first and first. Subscribe and be part of the million family. Let's reach 2 million this year. And don't forget to leave a nice comment in the comment section. Come with me. You know what? But since it's a sheep farm, we need to enjoy some Nhamma Choma today man. I feel like these days I've been spending time with Billoneers. Are you a Billoneer? Oh I was one there man. I was one there. Yeah I was one there to be the first sheep breeding Billoneer in the Gambia. See yeah yeah. I don't know if you're joking about sheep. The realm of sheep makes you a Billoneer? Of course. No doubt. Especially in Gambia, of course you can be. Listen, in England the most expensive sheep in the market, maybe you pay 200 pounds for it. That's like $12,000. That's expensive. Yeah yeah. If you go to the butcher's shop, you know you ain't going to spend more than 200 pounds to buy a sheep and maybe most like 150 or something like that. In Gambia, if you take 200 pounds to the market, you have a small lamb. And now in England farmers are Billoneers. So where can we be? You know, why can't you? I thought in Africa, agriculture is for the poor people. Oh no, you see that's one of the narration I'm trying to change. That's the concept I'm trying to change. My brother, listen it's not for the poor people anymore. That's why we fail before. It's for the rich people. Come on, invest. Listen up here. I'll give you an example. If you look at this farm here, the land is expensive. The land on the farm is expensive. I bought it all here but today it's worth a lot. So if I were poor, just the land have made me rich because I bought the land and I kept it for the agriculture. So because of that today, it makes me rich. So secondly, we are trying to make millionaires. That's what we're trying to do. We want people to be millionaires, like the rich. The rich people are the farmers, my brother. You know, I perfectly understand you. That is why I keep on telling the youth of Africa that it's time for them to venture into agriculture. Man, yes, we have done that yesterday. This is our same people. You see in Gambia, the wealth has gone past the city. It's in the boost. You want to catch the wealth, men start running when it's sprinting. You have to go to the boost, man. It's in the boost, man. Not in the city anymore. It's not going past the street, how to go to the city. The wealth is going past the city. There's no wealth in the city anymore. It's in the villages. So you want to catch up, men start running. We need to get our boots ready to run inside the bushes just to go catch some wealth in the Gambia. My brother, I'm so proud of you of what you've been able to achieve. Actually, so you're on the internet and I'm like, I'm in the Gambia. I need to meet you before I get out of here. Listen, this is not about me alone. I'm really proud of you, my brother. Come to think of it. Listen, how often do we watch on TV, the salutes in Africa, starvation, war and restock? A young man thought about it for himself like, I'm going to do something different. I'm going to go out there and show people in the world that Africa is enjoying, Africa is developing, Africa is cool, man. Congratulation, man. Thank you. Thank you. But I want to ask you a question. Yeah. If you hear the name Africa, what comes into your mind? Opportunities. The opportunities in Africa? Yeah. Africa is opportunities. Listen, we have the youngest, we are the youngest continent in the world. Maybe all this land, we have everything. Listen, if you look at it, if COVID did not teach us anything, then we ain't going to learn anything anymore. When COVID came, the West did their vaccination, they produced their vaccination. What did they do? They stopped it from going out of their countries. They didn't care about Africa. They said, oh, man, Africa, they need this vaccination. No, they did what they have to do to protect themselves first before they thought about us. So think about it. If we have to rely on the West to feed ourselves, what's going to happen? If they're starvation, you think their feed is going to come here? Brof. Like Jack Ma once said, if there, if everybody's complaining, then there is the opportunity. Whoa. Yeah. I don't know about this, but I think Africans love complaining. Yeah. Africans always love to talk about the problems without thinking about solutions. Yeah. That's what we need to think about solution. You see, I don't like when people come complaining. I know, even problem, when something happens, I don't want to know who did it, why, how it happened. I don't want to know. Brof, how can we fix it? Yeah. That's, that's, that's, that's what I think. How can we fix it? If you're new to the channel, my name is Wadamaya, the one and only annoying village boy from Ghana who is on a journey to change the narrative of Africa enough of the negativity across the continent. It's time for us to show you light about the continent for you to know that it's possible in the Madeleine, a brother. I know, I know you, I know more about you, but the people watching us are definitely watching you for the first time. Who are you? I am a ship breeder. You know, I'm trying to change the narration of ship breeding in the Gambia. The concept of Gambia people have about farming and I'm working on developing the fastest growing and most expensive ship breed, the Lalum breed in West Africa to mass produce it. My name is Ibrahim Jalo, the proprietor of the Jalos Farm and the president of the Gambia Breeders Association. Were you born and raised in the Gambia? Yes, I was born and raised here. And what happened? You ever left Gambia? Yeah, and what happened? Like, you know, you know, the average Gambian youth after school, you want to travel because we told the process of greener somewhere else. So I finished school as travel and then, wait, like in Gambia, everybody thinks that the greener pastures is out there. Yeah, most people. Before, but now people know it's not true. Because of that, a lot of people are using the back door to go to Europe and stuff? No, no. When I finished school, there was not this back door thing. It was easy to get visa, you know, you don't need visa to go to many countries, you just buy a ticket and that's it. So basically, if you don't travel, it's like, it's because you're going up on the ticket. So, you don't need visa to go to many countries. You just buy a ticket and you go, yeah. What was your first country? My first country to go to was Belgium. And then I went to, how to call it, Germany, then Holland. They came back to Gambia and they started doing some business pizza and stuff. You know, I got this opportunity to go to England to study a bit. And I went there, I studied and I finished school. I walk a bit as I got fed up. You got fed up? Yeah, man, come on. There's a doctor, you know, I'm a doctor by profession. Okay. So sometimes we have to check if everything is okay with you. She looks okay in it. You left England because you're fed up. Some of us are killing ourselves to go there. My brother, I'm fed up with the alarm clock. Trust me, at one point you go to the toilet, you have to put the alarm clock so that you won't oversleep in the toilet. Oh my goodness. Everything is alarm clock. You know, when I came to Gambia the first time, my friend came, hey, Ej, man, how's the Gambia? I said, there's no alarm clock. So what are you doing in the Gambia right now? I'm a farmer, a proud farmer. A proud one? Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to change the narration of shipbuilding in this country. What kind of, so you're doing the ship farming? Yeah, I do ship farming. Listen, what really inspired you to start a ship farming in the Gambia? Yeah, you know, what happened was like, when I came to Gambia, I started with different business because I didn't know what to do or why. And but every year I buy like six rams, you know, for Tobaske. Maybe Tobaske, some people will not know what Tobaske is like in that Muslim face where we, you know, slaughter animals and stuff. So I used to buy like six, five, six every year. And I said to myself, listen, I got a house, I got space. Why should I be buying rams every year? So let me just buy them and start rearing them, you know? So I bought them and started farming them. And then I was looking, I was having this female one, you know, I'm on a boat, I just like the female and I bought it. And then one day when I see lamb, I look at it, you know, it was so nice and adored. I say, listen, I'm going to make it. Why do I buy the rams every year? And then slaughter it. Then the next year I buy another one, so I'm like, why can't I just, you know, how to call breed them? So I started breeding them purposely for Tobaske. That's the reason I bought the female one. And I went to Aboko. It's the biggest sheep market in the Gambia to visit a friend. And also, so all these sheep, they're having like stamps, you know? Stamps? Yeah. And I said to him, why are these all the stamps on the sheep? So, okay, when we go to the market and we buy some sheep and stuff, you know, we have to stamp it so that when, when we put them in the truck, when they arrive, everyone will be recognized. Because each person has his own stamp in his sheep, you know? So I said, oh, so all these sheep, that means they came out of the Gambia. So yeah, yeah, Mulchani, Mali, how to call it, Senegal. I said, man, oh man, that's an opportunity, man. That's why you said when it comes to Africa and the first word that comes out of his mind is what? Opportunity. Yeah. He saw the opportunity and he grabbed. Yeah. How many sheep did you start? I started with six. I sold all the, all the rams. And I went and bought six female and one raw. But I didn't know about breed. I didn't know, I just have female, let them, you know, lame and I have male, I don't need to buy them, you know? So when I started the process and then I realized that in sheep breeding, it's not how many sheep you have, that is the money. It's how many good sheep you have, it's where the money is. Then I realized that the sheep I was wearing was time-wasting and it was expensive. So I changed the narration. So I said, what I'm going to do now, lamb is really expensive. And there we don't have many lambs, you know? It's not a sheep you buy and they slaughter it all for barbecue and stuff. You just buy for breeding because they're really expensive. So I'm going to take this sheep and cross breed it with a mediocre sheep and then produce my own laddum. So that's what I'm trying to do here. So when you take the laddum, when I take the laddum, I cross breed it with this mediocre sheep and the offspring will be like 50%. And I take that 50% and take 100% laddum and cross breed it with that one. And that one will give me 75%. So by the time I have F5, I have laddum. So I'm trying to have 1000 sheep of laddum breed. So then you can buy a laddum and barbecue it, you can buy a laddum and slaughter it because we have much produce in it. That's what I'm trying to do here. How many sheep do you have right now? I got like 300 sheep at the moment. I started with six, now I have 300 sheep. 90% of the sheep you see here, they were born in this farm. Yeah, they were born in this farm. Which sheep is your favorite sheep there? My favorite sheep is EJ. The one I named after myself. They named the sheep by herself? Yeah, I named the sheep after myself. What happened? It's that all the sheep have a name, they all have a file because that way it's the way you can follow up their health issue. Because this is EJ. He's two and a half years old. I named it after myself. This is the biggest sheep in here? No, it's not. We see taller than him, got longer ways than him and stuff. But he's the son of Mubarak. Mubarak is son of Muxin. Muxin is son of magistrate. We follow the genetics of the sheep as well. It's very, very important. So that's where the price is, the genetic of the sheep. So what I'm trying to do here now, I'm trying to make the whole farm to be like EJ. That's what I'm trying to do. So the ones you are seeing here, some of them are F1, some of them are F2s. That's the one you are seeing here. What are F1 and F2? F1 is when I take the mediocre sheep and cross breed it with a laden breed. The first generation is F1. That's 50%. You take that 50% and cross breed it with another laden breed. It's the second generation, that's F2. You take that F2 cross breed, 50% is that F3. By the time I have the F5, I have pure breed laden. Let me know with this breed, how long does it take for it to be ready for the market? No, no, no. My lamb today, at three months, four months, you can slaughter them. You have 30 kilos. But the local lamb that we have, it's more like three to four years. Yeah, yeah, it takes three years to have 30. That's what I said. When I started, I didn't know the difference. So I was just buying, but now I know I have to have proper blood, proper breed. So that's what I'm trying to do. That way, the lamb you are going to wear for three years to have 30 to 35 kilos, I can have the maximum six months, 46 months maximum, 30 to 35 kilos. Are you ready to teach people across the continent on how to start up their own sheep farm? Brother, I love it man. I'm telling people to come and invest. Listen, you see, you see the sky? If you stand here, you look at the sky. And I stand here, I want to block you from seeing the sky. You only need to just turn if you see the other sky. So you invite people because the more we are into these things, the better for us. That's why I call it epic Gambian, epic Africa. Especially when you're in the diaspora, man, you got money. Some of them got money. They don't know what you do. You know, come in and invest in the sheep breeding. You know, invest in the farm. Anything about farming, trust me, Africa is an opportunity because we have to eat. Yeah, we have to eat. Everything in the Gambia, we eat, we import it. So whatever you do, whatever you farm, it might be a zeal for you. But how do you feed them? Because I think that is the most expensive part of farming in Africa, especially doing animal farming. Yeah, yeah, feeding is really expensive. You know, feeding is really expensive because what happened is when I started these things, I didn't know anything about sheep breeding. Like I said, it's an opportunity and I took advantage of it. I started the wrong way around. No matter what you do, you start with your feeding. You know, feeding is expensive. That's why I'm working on it now. I got my own grass, a farm grass and stuff. You know, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm doing. So these are the mediocre sheep. You know, if you look at this one, this one is one year old. That's his first, first lambing, you know. Yeah, so it's one year old. So the options are F2s. This is the box, this is the maternity box. All the sheep in here will be lambing in the next 102 weeks. So that's the maternity box, you know. Is it a lucrative business? Yeah, but it's a business that we invest and wait. It's not, you know, one mistake we always have in Africa is like you just want to really pump and you see, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, you have to sit and wait. Like I said, you know, the sheep gas season period is like this once they're on two months pregnant. And in the next two months, they're going to have their lambs as well, you know. In this guy, in the, the, the, the gas season period of sheep is 150 days. So this 150 days, when the sheep lamb, you need to wait like seven months, like my men to Abu Khan, I used to wait for my lamb to be like 12 months before they get made. And then he said, no, no, no, no, no, seven months is good. So now I made them as seven. By the time they are one year old, you know, they're lamb. So that upstream, you take another one year to change the generation. So you need like five years to change the generation from mediocre sheep to lamb breed. So you need to sit and wait, but it's worth it. It's worth it. It's really worth it. You know what I'm, this year, I'm trying to teach the youth how to fish. And most of them want to see numbers sometimes before they know that, oh, it's kind of lucrative. So let's talk about numbers in here. Let's say you take one lamb to the market. How much will it cost? Dami here, a lamb that we give you 35 kilos, you pay like $15,000 for it. Dollars? Yeah. Yeah. That will be like $300. And imagine if I have 100 lamb, 300 times 100, bro, which company will pay you that amount of money? You know, so, so that's what I say to people is the weight is worth it. Because if you can, if you can have your lamb at three months, four months, you have 35 kilos. So if you don't sell it for $15,000, just say, let's say I'm going to sell it for $10,000 for arguments. You can go wrong with it. You know, that's three, four months, you know, or lamb, you know, and that means you have softer meat and tender meat and how to call it. Your feeding cost is lower, you understand. So once the feeding cost is lower, you can have to call it, you can sell it cheaper. So that's what I'm trying to do right now. Do you regret living here, Rob? Regret? I don't have regret in my vocabulary. I would have come earlier if I knew what I knew now. I would have come earlier. Why you did not start a ship farm in the UK? Man, I didn't hear what I've said earlier. The most expensive, I've never bought a significant 400 pound in England. Who's ship? I didn't pay 100 pound for it. Here, there is no, you cannot buy a ship for 100 pound. So it's easier to make the money in Gambia than in England. With farmers are making millions in England, we sell it for 400 pound and you can sell it more expensive than 100 pound. Why would I do it in England? Obviously, you know, you can make more money in the Gambia. So if I knew what I knew today, I would have come earlier. I know it's a lucrative business, but definitely there are challenges here. Yeah. What has been the major challenge setting up this in the Gambia? When it comes to shipbuilding, when it comes to shipbuilding, some of our major challenges is vets and feeding. Yeah, feeding really is expensive. But at least with feeding, we can have a solution like I'm doing now. I got some grass, I'm working on the grass in it. So that's the solution. I can conquer that one. But the vet, that one I can't, you know, so I will encourage the government to invest in more vets because right now, we have few vets in the Department of Agriculture and the Minister of Livestock. They are doing their best, but I will encourage the government to invest more into vets. I've interviewed a lot of African entrepreneurs and they keep on saying that the system doesn't support entrepreneurs. Is it the same here in the Gambia? It used to be the same when it comes to shipbuilding, but the new minister we have this year, this time, the new minister, because I always say that she's different, she's different. Definitely. She came here for the first time in the history of the Gambia for a minister to open close to her office and go out to look for shipbuilders. That's the first time, so I appreciate it. And she brought us a small number again. You know, it's the first time in the Gambia as well. So with this one, I think we need to give her a chance. She have started, she have made a difference, you know, definitely. Before, man, they don't even, he worked in an office. I've been doing this for seven years. I've worked in the minister's office before. They practically chased me out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because once you say she's breathing, they don't want to hear. So if she comes and starts listening to us and saw the opportunity in that and believe me, since she came here, I got like 10 people who are starting to invest into shipbuilding. Listen, you've been talking about people investing in shipbuilding, shipbuilding, and I know that after this video, a lot of people would love to study our own farms. Yeah. I want to ask from you, is it cost effective when you want to start something like this? You see, anything I do, I start small. Whatever I do, I start small. And whatever I do, I always encourage people. You see, with shipbuilding, if you want to go into shipbuilding, it's important. You work on your feeding first. Work on your feeding and good genetics. It's very, very important to have good genetics. And once you have your good genetics, you have a good team. You know, management is core. These three things, if you have it right, you will succeed. And don't ever, ever underestimate the experience other people have. Go and learn from other people's mistakes. Yeah, learn from other people's mistakes. You see, when I started, I was doing it blind. I don't have anybody to guide me. All the mistakes I did, if you come to me, you know, do it. What to be five years can take you two years. True. Yeah. So learn from other people's mistakes. That's why I always learn from other people's mistakes. It's more like learning from the best. Yeah. You know what, before I let you go, we have so many young Africans watching us right now, if you have a message to them, what would that message be? I can pin fine to the Gambian mentality on the way of thinking. Because maybe the way it is on other African countries is different. But the Gambian mentality is you can't make it if you don't go to Europe. It's not true. Everything in this farm is made in the Gambia. In this farm, not a single buttoot I took from money I worked in Europe. Now, when I started it, I want to prove a point. I want to show people that it can happen. And people who know me when I started, everybody knew that everything in this farm was what I was going, was money I made in the Gambia. I started with six. 90% of the sheep you see here, they were born in this farm. You understand? So what I do, when they learn, I keep the female one, sell the male one, use that money and feed the female one. So now the pharmacy is established. So when people think that you have to travel to make it, it's just a mindset. You can make it in the Gambia. This business alone is an investment. And it's an investment that I made in the Gambia. So I didn't take Europe, not the land. The land was imported from European money. No, no, no, not the land, not the sheep, not anything. Everything in this farm. That doesn't mean that you came from Europe with nothing. No, when I came from Europe, I came with money. I came with money, because when I was coming from Europe, to be honest to you, I didn't intend doing sheep breed like I explained earlier, but I wanted to go fishing because one day I was at Tesco, so I bought a sheep, a fish for six pounds. I said, man, I can't believe, six pounds, one fish. We got the ocean, man. I called my mom. And you mom, can you believe, I paid six pounds, you know, when I came back to Gambia, my mom said, are you crazy? I said, I'm not crazy, buddy. So I did my logistic. I was fed up. I was fed up. I just wanted something to click. So I said, you know, just have a reason. You know, sometimes it's like you just want somebody to say jump, you know? So that was the jump for me. So when I listened to that, as I said, I called Gambia. I did some feasibility studies for fishing and all those things. I got all my resources. I came in. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't have somebody to build the boats for me, you know? And that hindered me a lot. And then I started doing different businesses, you know? But when I got this opportunity, I put all my energy and effort into this one. This one is the, is the lasting one. I know this one, I want to build it so that my children can have a first generation. You know, you go to Europe and say, ah, we have five generation farmers. That's the legacy I want to leave here. So I will appeal, I will tell to the youths, the $200,000 you think you can take, the government used to go to the back way. Listen up, you know, $200,000, you give that to me today and I go to the bush in five years time above. If you go to Europe, when you come back here, if I don't lend you money, you don't lend me money. Yeah, definitely. I'm 100% sure of that one. It's been seven years doing business in here. Are Gambians now purchasing from you? No more, like, are they purchasing from you? Because now, before they used to buy from staff that have been imported from Gambia, what do you call it, Soniga, Mauritania and the rest. Are they now purchasing from you? Yeah, definitely. I will thank the diaspora a lot because definitely they patronized me last year at Tobosky. Yeah, because what happened there, they will call me, buy the rams, you know, in the next three, when they come, you have, you find here extra 200 sheep rams. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Normally I buy like 200 rams last year, you know, buy them, patting them for Tobosky because what I'm trying to do is, is to build up my customer base. You know, right now the amount of rams I'm producing, I got more customer than that one. So I don't want to just minimize it to that amount. So I try to cater for everybody who wants to come in and support. So that when the farm grows and I have enough sheep, then I got people to sell it to without a problem. So last year, they patronized me and I give them a very good service as well. You buy a ram here, and you leave it here till day before Tobosky and you come and collect it. So there's no hassle. You find out we clear what's the ram, it's clear, but you just take it the following day, it's not right. So no hassle. You know, so those are the services we did, but I really appreciate and I thank the diaspora for all the support and the government people as well. Since you're thanking the diaspora, what is your message to the diaspora? Ah, the diaspora, what I'm going to tell you, the hours are too hard, my brother. You know what I'm talking about. There's no life in it. You know, if you make that little money, listen, it will never be enough. It will never be enough. You think like I'm going to build my first house, then you build your first house. I say, wow, I need to build the second one, I need to build the third one. Listen up, take that leap, jump, come to Africa, invest, invest into agriculture. It's like it's a virgin area. Can you imagine if people are saying I'm the biggest family country, then what are people doing then? You haven't even started. You haven't started. I want thousands sheep, you know, I have 300, so I haven't started. So that tells you come home. You know, last year, this year, this year, you know, it was last year, November, but the Senegalese means of agriculture came because our association had a sheep breeding. So, and he said from their records, 50,000 sheep cross from Senegal to Ghana during Tabasco. 50,000 sheep. If each sheep cost $10,000, that's a lot of millions of dollars. We are shipping to Senegal. You could have left it here. Great jobs. So I will appeal to you, take that jump, take that leap, come home, brother, and invest. You ain't gonna regret it. Listen, what you think about Africa, it's not like that. It's too hard, it's too harsh, you don't have freedom, you don't have come on. You were born here and you survived. And you think you cannot come and survive? It's a meft. Thank you. If you had one chance to change one thing in Africa, what would it be? Leadership. Yeah, leadership. Leadership in the homes, in the offices, at the top level, every piece of our leadership. I'll give you an example. The minister decided to come and visit me, a sheep breeder. It never happened. What that did to me? He encouraged other people to say, oh, okay, now the government is looking at performers and they want you to come in. Just a visit. So leadership is important. People look up to you. Whatever you do, whether you know it, you don't know it, it means a lot. So the leadership, we need to change the attitude as well. You know, we, the people, you know, sometimes we blame the leaders of what we are doing. You know, if I'm a good father at home and I'm blaming the outcome, the minister or the president, I'm not better than him. He started home. Let's be good husbands, you know, good wives and all of it, you know, understand, you know, whatever we do, we try to be good at it. You know, let's change the narration. You know, one thing I don't understand us Africans is you go to abroad, we study in the universities, we work in the companies, we do everything in there and we are good at it. We come home and we start changing. Why? I say, ah, that's the system. We're system. You know, when I started, everyone said to me, this cannot be done. They will not survive. I said, listen, I don't believe in that. Yeah. Even educated people, you know, they say, they will not survive here. It cannot be done. It's impossible. Yeah. I said, listen, tell me why it is impossible. I want to know why they are dying. That's the question I want to know. You said they will die. I want to know why and today I used to have like 50% mortality rate and I have under 5%. So it can be done, you know. I'm so much inspired today and I believe that if you are also watching this video, you are inspired and you will love to talk to him in person. How do we reach out to you? You can call me on 00220 789 3464 or you go to my Facebook page, Digialos Farm or my YouTube channel, Digialos Farm. You know, man, bro. Thanks for coming, man. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor. It's an honor. But I won't live without eating some Yamachoma, man. I need some sheep. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. I'm going to give you a three-month old name and you go and see how it feels. Honestly, thank you so much for watching. I'm going to see you in the next one. Make sure if you like the video, it's very important. Subscribe and be part of the million family and most importantly, share so that each and everyone can get a piece of this. My name is Wadamaya and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.