Geoffrey Muriithi
Baricho, Kenya
5% repaid
Name
Geoffrey Muriithi
Member since
September 2015
On-time repayments
21 installments • 5%
I spent my childhood and a significant part of my youth in Kirinyaga County. I started school here in the village where I grew up. It is a small village called Mutitu in a remote part of the County. I had to overcome all the hardships that most children in rural Kenya face even today. Braving the morning cold each day with my bare feet soaked in the morning dew. High school was not a free ride either but the hardships I had to overcome each day made me even more determined to come out on top.
My determination eventually landed me an opportunity to study administration at the Kenya Institute of Administration and eventually Moi University.
After school, I went through the challenge of unemployment like most youth today. I did a variety of manual jobs and farming being a major economic activity in Kirinyaga, I developed an interest in farming.
Eventually, I landed a job in the Health Sector as a Hospital administrator. I worked in several hospitals till my retirement.
I have four children who thankfully I have managed to see through school all the way to University. However, having retired before they finished school, most of my retirement benefits went to my children's education. I would like my children to have the best in life and achieve all their hearts' desires so they have always had the first priority in my life.
Now that they are all grown up, I have ventured into the one activity that I still have a passion for - Farming.
My wife and I run a small shop in our home town Baricho. We stock farming tools, animal feeds, pesticides, seeds and many other farming products. These are useful because most of the people depend on farming as their major source of livelihood.
We chose to open the shop because we noticed the inconvenience people faced when having to travel to larger towns to get their products.
Baricho being a small town, we get to interact with most of our clients directly and therefore we were sure to get a stable client base.
Our typical costs include the usual rental expenses, electricity, postage and water bills among others. We also have to pay for Business permits and health certificates especially since some of our products are fed to animals directly.
We would like to expand to business so that we can use the profit to finish building our family home and hopefully save on rental expenses.
The planting season is about to begin. Most people will be looking to buy fertilizers for their gardens. I would therefore like to stock the shop with the fertilizers that farmers require during this season. Most farmers use fertilizers such as Calcium Ammonium Nitrate (C.A.N), Sulphate of Ammonia (S/A), Urea, Sulphate of Potash, DAP among others.
The most commonly used however is Calcium Ammonium Nitrate. This is because, it is an excellent source of nitrogen, which is readily available to plants due to its excellent solubility. It works well for all types of crops for pre-planting or as a top dressing application. Especially reccomended for early application in cereals. Suitable for straight application and blending.
Most farmers plant maize and beans and CAN would be an excellent choice.
A 50 Kg bag of CAN costs approximately KES 2300 that is around 23 dollars. Two bags would therefore cost me approximately 46 dollars.
After the deduction of my membership fee, I would like to purchase two 50 kg bags of CAN fertilizer which I would later repackage in 1/2 kg, 1 kg and 2 kg bags to make them affordable to small scale farmers.
The profit from this would go a long way towards the savings for completion of our family home.
I therefore appeal to all lenders to help fund my loan. Thank you.
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Project Type
Classic Loan
Disbursed amount
$200.00
Date disbursed
Oct 29, 2015
Repayment status
Late
Projected term
4 months
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