Farm operations processing raw coffee

Entrepreneur

About Me

My name is Fredrick Warui. I reside on the outskirts of Nakuru Town, which is 150 km from Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. Nakuru is a cosmopolitan town and hosts every tribe in Kenya .I am married and my spouse name is Diana, we have two daughters, Zippy who is 8 years and Tracy 2 years and 4 months. Zippy is in standard two. She is an intelligent girl and she loves peace and will rarely cause any trouble, she loves art. She would love to become a nurse. Tracy is good with words and I marvel at her vocabulary despite her young age she talks in full sentences. She is full of energy and she is not pushed around but wants to have her way. I spent my childhood and Primary schooling in Nyahururu town, known for its famous Thompson falls. I consider my childhood to have been happy and adventurous. In my opinion I consider life to have been simple, playing and school was the way of life. Nyahururu town had a privilege of having a cinema hall, hence an opportunity to watch movies. I also cultivated interest for reading. I cleared my Primary School in 1991 and joined High School in 1992 which I cleared in 1995.During holidays I would help in the family business and also subsistence farming. This cultivated my love for farming. On challenges, I consider life as a school. Someone once said that, “ the only difference between school and life is that, in school one is given a lesson and then a test but in life one is tested to learn a lesson. Hence one never stops learning. I have been able to contribute in educating my cousin and in bring him up since he was 2 years after my aunt passed on. He cleared Campus last year after pursuing a Business Management course. That is a goal I am proud of.

My Business

I have found it necessary to change my profile so that I can demonstrate how Zidisha Loans have assisted me. I remember receiving my first loan in the middle of the night. Some coffee farmers had requested for some advance for various farm operations involving picking and drying of coffee. I sent the whole amount to the farmers. I am now operating under a registered trade name, Taurus Farm Enterprises. My business deals with three products, namely-buying and selling dry coffee, buying and selling manual coffee hullers and general agriculture which involves selling of fertilizers for increasing coffee yields. The coffee manual business was born out of the funds that Zidisha Loans provided. Its from the need to solve the farmers problem of selling dried ripe coffee cherries that fetch poor prices. From one kg of dry coffee cherry, a farmer sells to me at between 0.35$ and o.45$ per kg which I sell at between 0.5$ and 0.6$. I get 0.5$ per kg. Once the farmer acquires a coffee huller he is able to add value to the ripe coffee cherries. The pulped coffee is then fermented , washed and then sun dried to 11% moisture content ready for milling. I buy this coffee at between 1.5$ and 2.5$ per kg and sell at 2.5$ per kg. For the manual coffee hullers my customer segment is the farmer. I buy old models, Bentall type from Brazil that performs better that the new models from china. I sell about 4 machines in a good month. One goes at 300$ and I sell at 360$, transport cost takes 10$.I make about 200$ per month. I sell about 1000 kg of coffee in a month and get a gross of 500$.My operation expenses that involves transport of the coffee, storage, meals, lodging takes 200$, leaving me with about 300$. As I support my grandma plus my family, I use my income per month as follows: Rent 50$, food 120$, Electric and water bills 10$, phone bill 21$, school fees 15$. Loans take about 5o$, I manage to save about 25$ which goes to my Sacco for investments.

Loan Proposal

I am going to buy a small manually operated coffee pulper that will be used to remove husks of ripe coffee berries,as value addition.Price for the manual coffee pulper is 10 dollars.This coffee pulpers assist farmers in value addition as the machine removes the husk from the berries thereby leaving the patchment which is fermented ,washed,dried (to 11%0 moisture content) and is ready for milling and grading.Benefits are in reducing the volume,1000 kg of ripe coffee cherries are reduced to 200 kg of dry patchment. At the farm gate prices 1 kg of cherry is 0.2 dollars ,1 kg of dry patchment is sold by farmers at 2 dollars.I get to sell from 2.5 dollars per kg .My profits increase by more than 20%.If the farmer dried the 1000 kg ripe cherries to make dry buni (after drying 500 kg remain).Price is 400 dollars .I sell at 500 dollars ,i make 100 dollars.With the 200 kg dry patchment i would sell at 500 dollars(B.P 340 dollars) I would get 170 dollars as profit.

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