Agribusiness through poultry and tree tomato farming

Entrepreneur

About Me

My name is John Mwai. I hail from Kieni Constituency, in Nyeri County. I am married with two kids. Jerusha and Brian. Jerusha - my talkative and mischievous first born is 11 years old and is in Class 6 . Brian, the naughty ,playful, daring , adventurers and 'bad boy' is three years old and in Baby Class (Kindergarten).

In Nyeri I have a five acre land which I want to do mixed farming in it as a business. I have built a farm house, irrigation water and electricity but now needs a partner who can help me do agribusiness in this land. I have been doing subsistence farming but want to expand. My land is in the highlands, has irrigation water and the climate is very good for farming.

My Business

I have been doing farming in Nyeri but subsistence farming where I sell the surplus. I make around 5000/- per month from potatoes in the farm. I make about 2, 000 per week from sale of vegetables, kales, spinash and dania that are harvested daily into the farm. This income is put back to the farm and also to pay for labor.

Agribusiness is where you do farming as a business not just as a hobby or for food crops alone.

I want to increase this by making it agribusiness.I want to venture in poultry farming in one part where I want to rear Kenbro kienyenji chicken which are a good source of income. These chicken have good demand and also their eggs are in great demand.

On the other part I want to grow tree tomato fruits (tarmallilo) which do very well in this part of the country. My first initial loan will be used to buy 5 hens and one cock to start my chicken farming. I want to start small and ensure that we grow with Zidisha together.

After my initial loan I was able to buy 5 Kenbro chicken and from my savings , I was able to buy another 10. Now I have fifteen chicken , 10 hens and 5 cocks which are about to start laying. I have realized that to make economic sense, I need to have about 200 chicken in total. I want to buy 100 1 month old chicks to brood. I also want to construct a storey house for the big number of poultry and buy an incubator to do my own hatching.
My projection is that by December 2015, I will have about 150 mature chicken to sell. In December there is a very good market for chicken during the festivities and one mature hen goes for Kshs. 1000.
I have also employed Mr. Fredrick Nyaga on full time basis to look into the poultry and take care of them.

Meanwhile, the one acre land where I wanted to grow tree tomatoes is now free after being tilled. I need to buy 500 seedlings to plant on the land. The red oratia variety matures within six months and I hope to start harvesting by October this year. With your assistance I will transform my farm into an agri business .I will offer casual employment to people in my village who will come to weed and harvest the fruits.

Before they reach harvesting time, I want to research on value addition of these fruits because they are good for making juice and bread jam.

Loan Proposal

The first loan I will buy 5 HENS @ USD 5.7 = 29
1 COCK @USD 10 = 10
TOTAL = USD 39
KSHS. 1000 goes to registration.

Once the hens start laying I will sell the eggs to other farmers and also reproduce my stock. Within 6 months i will have over 70 chickens.

The manure from the farm will be used in the shamba where I intend to grow tree tomato fruits. I will dispose some of the chicken to buy seedlings.

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