I will the loan to lease one more acre for planting beans and peas
Samwel
Milimani, Kenya
22% repaid
Entrepreneur
Name
Samwel
Member since
February 2014
On-time repayments
183 installments • 8%
About Me
From a humble background with three grass thatched round houses enclosed in a round kei-apple fence; a smoking kitchen, siting room and the last as bedroom, is where i was born. Proud of our family, i am samwel macharia, son of my late mother and, third born after my two sisters one of whose is mentaly sick and the other one is maried, I am hardworking and high spirited person.i have to work hard to provide for our familly since my father poisons in alcohol. I am twenty six years old. I hope one day i will make it in life and have a family of my own. I cannot give up because the rest look up to me. I feel reliefed becouse i my eldest sister comes to help me with chores at huome, and that inspires me to work harder. I am proud to be a farmer.
I finished my secondary school in 2005. I wanted to go colege and do caurse in mechanic when my mother separated with my father because of alcohol and became tough. In fact every time i did not go to school, poverty was the root of my problem. I had decided to plant beans and peas to raise money for my school fees and postponed my enrolment until the following year. I was left in dilema since i have always dreamed to extend my education and be a good example to others but my dream was disappeared by our family conflict. I blamed poverty for my childhood hard life. I lived with my sick sister and mother and there were no jobs. I thenk God because we had maize in store so that do not go hungry and when it was finished we would borrow from my uncle althoug us usual we could go hungry sometime. I did manual jobs atleast to raise money to buy medicine for our sister. My mother was very happy. My father had a farm we used to plant maize, beans, and peas and we culd go with our eldest sister to cultivate. The farm was the source of our living. We also had daily cow which gave us milk for both domestic use as well as for sale to give us income. I thought my efort was very much needed at home and i helped taking after the cows and cultivation. I could havest enough crops for our family and little for sale. I developed passion at farming because i was used to doing it and i had gained the skills. I wanted to get my own shamba (land) and plant beans and peas. I was very optimistic they could do very well because our region has cool and wet climate which is good for the two crops. Unfotunately my sicke sister disapeared and we were stressed in despair. My father stopped drinking to provide for hisfamily but he stated drinking again. I was going through sorrow and nothing can compare to the grief. We never found her.
In 2010, i felt poor i comitted myself to do crop farming and dairy farming to my best as a business. I wanted to fill the gap that was left by making sure our family would not disapear in poverty since i was now the one to take over our family bussinesses. Our father was generas to portion the land to cultivate. I worked under the rain and sun and going home tied even at 7:00 pm from farm but nowing one day i reap the fruits of my sweat. The season during that year were very favorable for beans and peas and i got high yields. The cow when properly fed could pronduce ten liters of milk per day and this was enough for use and for sell.
Since then i have been faming as my career proffession and i will push on every obstacles to do large scale commercial farming.
My Business
I do both daily farming and crop farming. I have two cow that ploduce alot of milk breed. They produce ten liters per day and i sell seven literes and three liters for home use. Dary farming is very demading and i have to wake up at five in the morning to stat my program. I feed the cows on grass (kikuyu grass) and fodder crops. Luckily i use foliage from shamba and feed them to the cows. This saves me from buying daily meal because it is expensive. When the cow is milk production starts reducing i sell it and add savings to buy a better breed to give me more milk. I have alredy sold one cow. I want to buy a cross breed that will give me more milk. This way i will get more money from milk. The advantage of dairy farming is that i can get profit from selll of unproductive cows, calves and sale of milk. I want to buy a better breed but the money i have is not enough.
I have also planted beans on a quarter acre peace of our family land. I have experience in planting beans, peas. The variety of beans i plant on the farm is called wairimu. It give me good harvest and the rains are favourable for this variety. The market is very big. In fact peple call me and buy beans while in the shamba becaise of high demand. If i was to transport them alone to the market i can get alot of money. I want to avoid the middleman because he benefits more than me. In fact in my last harvest, i harvested three and a quarter bags of threshed bean and sold for Ksh. 4500 per bag. This is a lot money since i bought seed for just Ksh. 500.
Peas is even the most profitable. I sell them when they are green in pods. I sold four bags for a quarter acre, each bag was Ksh.6000.
I am using our family farm which soil is not so good for planting due to low nutrients but i want to lease a land and cultivate. There are virgin lands on lease and i am hoping i get one acre. If i succeed, our family will be success and never poor again. I can manage to culivate by paying good people provide labour on the farm as i feed the cows. I have opened up to zidisha because a friend explain to me how it works and i saw it was my beacon of hope. If zidisha is helping people like us, i humble myself asking for your help. Thank you so much for your consideration.
Loan Proposal
I am request assistance from every good gentleman and respectable lady to lend me some money for leasing acre land so that i can achieves maximum yields this year. I love farming very much and as a business and with the experience i have, i will be able to pay your loan from my harvests, provide for our family, and help me buy a new breed. Beans and peas have very promising result for years in our region and therefore best choice forplanting. I am thenkful to the zidisha for pumping hope into our my life in a way have not seen before. Whatever little you will do for will be an equal chance to anyone else. Thank you.
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Loan Info
Project Type
Classic Loan
Disbursed amount
$150.00
Date disbursed
Mar 5, 2014
Repayment status
Late
Projected term
42 months
Lenders
Austin, United States
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