Irrigation system for vegetable farm

Entrepreneur

About Me

My names are Mercy Mugure Kimani. I'm married and have 3 children. I was born in Kiambu district in the Kiambu county which was in the former Central province. This is about 50 miles from Nairobi.

I went for early education near my rural home, which is just a walking distance and this was so good as I did not get tired going to school, unlike my counterparts.

Later I went to a school in Nairobi, Uthiru Girls high school, and after my form 4 exams, I joined a college in Nairobi to do my study in Front Office & Housekeeping.

I got married in the year 2010 and relocated to my current township of Nakuru which is 130 miles south of Nairobi.

My Business

I have been practising horticulture with my 5th loan and am happy to let you know that it was a wise decision.

Farming is not only a passion that I have, but the challenges and the ability to oversee crops from seeds to maturity and finally selling them and earning brings lots of excitement.

The farming I was doing was overhead irrigation which has it's own shortcomings, but on the other hand the profits are big. Within the first 6 months, I had started realizing profits upto 80% more.

This is the reason I want to move to a more intesified Greenhouse farming which is more productive and harvest are bigger hence the projected income will definitely double in the next half year.

Loan Proposal

My salon, M-Pesa services and clothing business are now self sustaining. Since I now have a two month baby, I decided to venture to horticulture business as the other business has a commendable and trustworthy employee who knows how the day to day activities of the shop involve.

Horticulture is a very vibrat activity within my town and at this point, it is now my time to go full time, courtesy of Zidisha loans!

Zidisha has been a blessing to me and my family! This my 5th loan request through Zidisha and it only appears as if I started yesterday.

My clothing shop and salon are now fully operatinal and since I got my youngest baby boy recently, I have had to have somebody whom I have been training all along to continue with the day to day running of my business. We started with her from scratch and she knows how to go about the business, which includes, stock taking, banking, bills payments and so on.

Now that I have a baby (2 months old), I have always wanted to venture into horticulture farming since I have a piece of land where I can do this.

This will mean that I have to have constant water supply for farm irrigation, the good news is that there is a water borehole in the vicinity and I only have to apply and be connected to this supply to enable me irrigate my farm especially during the dry season when the crops fetch good prices.

The advantange of my location is that we are located in a large town/city called Nakuru which is the county headquarters and this makes the demand for horticultural products very high. The consumers are many and the vegetable vendors come to the farms for produce and you do not have to go and look for market! The key issue is having the right products for the consumers.

I was therefore humbly asking my Zidisha lenders to once again, provide me the 5th loan for the establishment of this horticultural farming enterprise.

I want to start with growing tomatoes, onions, spinach, cabbages, carrots, brocolli, lettuce, cucumber and other fast moving vegetables.

The cost for the project is as follows

1. Cost of certified hybrid seeds....................................$100
2. Cost for applying for borehole water..............................$50
3. Cost for pipes, taps, and plumbing hardware.......................$200
4. Cost for land preparation.........................................$100
5. Cost Fertilizers, crop chemicals such as fungicides, pesticides...$100
6. Other hidden cost like manual cash for farm hands.................$100

TOTAL................................................................$650

Within some months, by God's grace my new venture will break even and I will start reaping benefits and repay may Zidisha loans without much difficulty.

Thank you so much and may God bless you all.

Mercy.

Feedback

Loan Info

Lenders