Huye businessmen venture into commercial agriculture

Jean Paul Utagiruwe quit his job as a university librarian in April 2011 and bought a 3-hectare piece of land to start cattle farming. His start-up capital was five cows, including one bull. He had spent Rwf3 million on the land and another Rwf2 million on the cows. He got the start-up from a side business of selling cattle, savings from his salary as well as Rwf1.6 million credit he got from Caisse d’Entraide, a savings and credit fund for university staff. “I realised that the investment was giving low returns as each cow could only produce 4.5 litres of milk per day,” said the 37-year-old father of two. Utagiruwe later acquired a bank loan and bought another 25 hectares of land and 35 cows.“But still, the production was lower compared to the expenses. I decided to buy hybrid cows with higher crossbreeding quality,” Utagiruwe said. The Gisagara-born former librarian sold his low-producing cows and bought 38 high quality breed for Rwf15.2 million. But the cows started succumbing to a disease and in a few days, eight died. “I attribute the death of my eight cows to the fact that I did not know how to take care of the hybrid cows to ensure their safety,” he said. Utagiruwe then sold some cows at Rwf600,000 each and remained with only six. However, after realising what was killing his cattle and how to have healthy cows, he decided to buy 10 more cows. “I learnt how to take care of my cows, including diagnosing symptoms of the diseases and treating them on my own or seeking veterinary service in time,” Utagiruwe said. Now he has about 20 hybrid cows and sells some calves. He also co-owns with Jean Paul Murekezi, another businessman, 15 cows with seven calves. Utagiruwe said he is paying tuition for her wife at university and the children at a decent nursery school through earnings from farming and employs 20 workers. He has planted 3 hectares of his 30-hectare piece of land with banana plantations, with five more hectares being prepared for the same activity this year. Two months ago, he also embraced passion fruit growing which he grows on one hectare of land. “I became interested in passion fruit farming as I realised the crop was productive. A passion fruit tree can produce 20 kilogrammes of fruit per year, and since I have 2,000 trees, the produce and revenues will be considerable, far better than growing bananas,” he said. The passion fruit tree starts giving yield after six months, whereas for bananas you wait for over a year. He advised farmers that any time a farmer wants to embrace a given crop, they have to carry out research to know whether the product is really worth it and is cost–effective and productive. Projected income Currently, Utagiruwe earns Rwf300,000 from milk sales and Rwf150,000 from banana sales monthly. The farmer targets to have at least 1.5 million monthly profits from his investment in agriculture by 2016. However, his projected revenue could probably increase as he has partnered with his friend Murekezi, the managing partner of Hôtel Faucon in Huye District, to bolster farming activities. Murekezi has been the director of Centre for Instruction Technology at the University of Rwanda, but this year, he opted for farming entrepreneurship. The two farming enthusiasts plan to do their farming activities on at least 50 hectares of land. Murekezi, from Tumba Sector, Huye, said they are seeking to make Rwf500 million investment in agriculture, from which they expect to earn about Rwf100 million annually. “We will carry out banana, plums and passion fruit farming business together and sell our produce to processing industries in Huye District. Or we can even set up our own processing unit,” Murekezi said. “We want to embrace mechanised and modern farming so that we get more revenues. We are mulling buying water pumping equipment to water our crops to be able to farm in all seasons.” editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Huye businessmen venture into commercial agriculture