Entrepreneurship, Farm Advisory and Record Keeping
Entrepreneurship, Farm Advisory and Record Keeping
This domain tests the business and advisory side of crop protection: licensing, ethical recommendations, inventory control, farmer records and enterprise viability.
Core rules
- A pesticide dealer needs a licence under the Insecticides Act; premises, storage and a qualified person must meet the rules. Sell only registered, labelled products.
- Keep purchase invoices, batch numbers, a stock register, a spray diary, prescription copies and sales records. Records support traceability and tax compliance.
- Advisory begins with diagnosis: identify the pest, disease or weed, check the crop stage and recommend a label-compliant dose, water volume, PHI and PPE.
- Enterprise options include custom hiring of sprayers, a plant clinic, soil testing, farmer produce organisation services and agri-input retail.
- Manage cash flow: credit sales need a ledger, stock rotation avoids expiry and margins must cover transport and returns.
Worked example
A farmer asks for a strong medicine for tomato leaf curl. Reasoning: leaf curl is usually viral and spread by whitefly; an antibiotic will not cure it. Recommend resistant varieties, removal of infected plants, whitefly monitoring and a labelled vector-management option. Record the diagnosis and advice.
Traps
Selling an unregistered product, recommending off-label doses, giving credit without a ledger and failing to record batch numbers are common business and legal errors.
Key distinction
Advisory is diagnosis first, product second; a dealer who sells without a record cannot trace a complaint.