Farming cabbages, maize and tomatoes

Entrepreneur

About Me

I was born and raised in Zambia. I started my primary school at Lake road PTA school in Lusaka till grade 3 when I moved to Chengelo School, a boarding school in Mkushi which is in central province of Zambia. I was at Chengelo right up till my A-Levels when I finished in 2007. My Father who was the bread winner of our family passed on about 2 months before I wrote my IGCSEs in 2006, but thank God I managed to finish and pass them. After his passing, things got really tough for me and I had to learn to fend for myself. I had an uncle who was living in South Africa at the time and he volunteered to help me pay for my tertiary education so in 2008 I moved to Jahannesburg south Africa where I was enrolled at Monash University South Africa to study Business management. I studided there for 1 and half years until my uncle began to experience some financial difficulties and could no longer pay for me. I then had to stop university and would find different ways of trying to make money in South Africa, such as being a tourist guide as the World Cup was close. After the World Cup in 2010, I decided to leave South Africa to return back home to Zambia. My mother had an interior decorating company which she asked me to help her run as she became busy with her new job working as a lawyer for the government. I managed the business until 2012 when I decided to go back to school and I enrolled at ZCAS (Zambia Centre for Accountancy Studies) to study Marketing. I was being assisted with finance for my studies by one of my late fathers friends, and he helped for about 1 year then I had to again fend for myself. It was during this time that I developed an interest in agriculture and farming. I lived on a farm, but it was not productive at all. I decided that I could use the land to help finance my studies and got in horticultural farming growing tomatoes and cabbages. I started in 2013 and it helped me up until I obtained a BA (Hons) degree in marketing in 2018.

My Business

I am a small scale farmer based in Lusaka-West. I currently produce vegetables such as tomatos, cabbages and fresh maize which I supply to local markets and supermarkets. I am also about to start supplying seedling to surrounding farmers using a seedling nursery which I recently constructed. There is a huge demand for these commodities in the the surrounding markets and a supermarkets as the demand for food can never be met due to the ever growing population in Lusaka. I chose this business because I love to farm and to help feed people.

Loan Proposal

I will buy some fertilizer for our newly planted fresh maize field. In addition I will also buy fertilizer for the vegetable garden which is in need of fertigation. The loan will also help to purchase some chemicals for the fields too.

Income Source

I believe the business I am in can be classified as an essential business. The demand for food has only increased during the pandemic and farmers are now required to produce more to meet market demand. I will market my produce more vigorously to potential clients such as the supermarkets and marketeers as a way to take advantage of doing more business during this period.

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