Growing sweet potatoes

Entrepreneur

About Me

I am a lawyer by profession and practise law, i am also a starter farmer and i am interested in furthering my farming. I am the first born in a family of 7 children and come from Kericho County. I started a business since i was not satisfied with employment and i needed to earn more that my salary and also realize my potential. From my earnings, i invest in a little farming. I have currently bought a dairy cow that i intend to start my dairy farming with. I live in nairobi but my farm is in kericho and i have to travel to kericho often to check on things at the farm.

My Business

I have been involved in chicken farming, growing of sweet potatoes as well. At the moment, my chicken have reduced in number and production has been low. The source of income from chicken has been dwindling due to reducing stock and the price of eggs has not been favourable. Cost of production has been quite high. I would like to use the loan to continue my vegetable business. I have leased 10 acres of land in Narok where i have already planted vegetables in the nursery and will be transplanting them soon. The availability of water is the main issue as it is a semi arid area. We are relying on irrigation and we have to pump water from the rivrer to the farm which is about 1.2kms away from the farm. This make production costs slightly higher than in other areas where there is sufficient rain.

Vegetables are always in high demand as it is a staple food in Kenya. My typical costs are on seeds, fuel for the pump, food for the workers, fertilizer, pesticides and accommodation for the workers. The revenue is about 30 to 50 ksh per kilo of vegetables.

I will use the income from the vegetables to pay school fees for my son and also expand the farming to chili farming where there is better prices than vegetable farming.

This loan will help me to buy fertilizer to use for transplanting the vegetable as there is need to hire extra people to transplant 10 acres of vegetables. I currently have 3 workers in the farm who are permanent.

Loan Proposal

I would like to venture into sweet potatoes as recently there has been a growing market for Kenyan sweet potatoes in the UK. Venturing in sweet potatoes, especially organic sweet potatoes will bring additional income to myself and my family.

I intend to use the loan to buy sweet potato vines and also to pay for ploughing the land and for the labourers. In partnership with my mother, we have been able to lease a piece of land and since this is planting season, this is the right time to apply the proceeds from the loan.

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