Loan to market water softener to farmers using irrigation

Entrepreneur

About Me

I am the first of 5 children and was raised in Nairobi, Kenya by my mother. When I was 10, my father passed on and to support us she was forced to subsidize her salary by selling tea, bread and fish on a part time basis. After completing secondary education, I immediately took up a job so I could help her support the family. This way, we were able to get everyone through secondary school. I also studied accounting and management part-time while working and obtained a diploma in management from Strathmore University. Am married with 5 children, two of whom are now in University, one in secondary school and two in Primary school.

From earlier on, I saw that I will not be able to support my family and save for retirement on a salary. I saw a family business where even my children could join as the way to go. After 15 years in a job and three business failures later, I settled for drip irrigation. I make driplines from PPR pipes to fit either button drip emitters or even polyethylene drip tubes. These have a longer life span.

Kenya has had some severe drought in the recent past attributed mainly to climate change and the over reliance on rain fed agriculture on the part of farmers. I see drip irrigation as a possible solution to this as it enables a farmer to continue farming even when it is dry.

My Business

I am the proprietor of Dilu Agribusiness Solutions. I design, install and maintain drip irrigation systems right from water tanks, main water supply line as well as drip lines. Most of my customers are small scale farmers who install in less than an acre, through I have also installed drip irrigation on 10 acres.

I began drip irrigation quite by accident. I was looking for a way to incorporate a wetting agent called Super Gro that I came across. It is a remarkable, biodegradable product that turns hard water to soft water specially formulated for plants. Hard water slows plant growth and also encourages water loss due to runoff and evaporation, a common problem among'st Kenyan farmers who use basic irrigation techniques to grow their crops with water from boreholes, hand dug wells, springs and rivers, all of which contains varying degrees of hard water. After tests, I discovered drip irrigation to be the best way to incorporate Super Gro into the farm as water is delivered directly to the plant zone minimizing water waste while facilitating water absorption and plant growth. I sell Super Gro alongside the drip irrigation systems.

Super Gro costs $ 49 per 5 litres and has a dilution factor of 1:1000. I sell it for $ 60. Typical monthly revenues are $ 1040 and expenses are $ 475 leaving me with a profit of approximately $ 564. I use 40% of this to support my family, while 60% goes back to the business.

Loan Proposal

The loan will greatly enhance my marketing efforts to get my biodegradable water softener to small scale farmers many of whom use water from boreholes, hand dug wells, springs and even rivers. These are normally hard water due to the high calcium and magnesium content. Hard water contributes to the slow growth of plants. I will buy 2 jerricans at $ 49 dollars each and sell at $60. Its a slow start, but I intend to use the sales proceeds to repay the loan and take another loan to buy 4 more jerricans, repay the loan and keep flipping these jerricans till I get to my desired number of 30 jerricans per month. The 30 jerricans will create me a market big enough to develop my open air drip irrigation farm which requires some $20,000 to set up.

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