Farming has always been my dream, from childhood when I used to see my dad grow some crops like maize and rice in Lira. My dad would take me with him whenever he would be visiting his farm. I thus grew to love agriculture from a tender age of 10 year, when I turned 20 years it was the moment when I had to make the biggest decision of my life. I questioned myself where I would want to be in the next five years, and so i took the idea I had and decided to put it into practice because there is a huge gap in the agricultural business in Uganda and Africa at large, our government and those who could afford to do not engage in farming to its fullest potential.
In the beginning of 2009 I was now 21 years old, and begun to research about my idea and so it dawned on me there would be a hindrance, how was i to get the finances to start my dream, i went to my sister and asked her to loan me some four hundred thousand Ugandan(160US$), she agreed to lend me the money. Once i had the I decided to purchase a few piglets, for my research had revealed that piggery was a more profitable business due to the high demand for pork in Uganda for there are many pork joints around the country. So i purchased four piglets at the cost of fifty thousand shillings (20US$) at that time and leased some land (50squaremetres) in a place called Kigumba along Kampala-Gulu highway for which I paid ten thousand shilling (4US$) for a month.
Towards the end of 2009 i had 35pigs and piglets however in September that I had to start my 2 year diploma course in Business Administration.I asked one my cousin to come and help me with keeping the pigs and every two weeks I would be going to Kigumba and checking on the pigs, an so i set off for books, i sent money for feeding and other operational expenses between September 2009 to December 2010 and my cousin was doing well helping me. We had done so well and we now had a sizable number of pigs, my plan was to sell some during my break in holidays January 2011 but i to take my dad for treatment in India and that is when things started changing.
When i came back I found that my cousin had sold some of my pigs when I asked him for the money he could not give me accountability, my investigations led me to discover a changed lifestyle for he had taken to the bottle. I would not taken any chances so i decided to remove him from my project and called upon my bother Richard to help me. By March Richard was now in control and quite settled in.I spent a lot of time with the project during the transition and decided to grow my own feeds for the pigs so that I could reduce on always having to buy feeds.I was feeding them on maize brand and so we cultivated ten hectors of land with maize which did very well and when I got done with books in June, I joined Richard just in time for harvest. I am now mostly based at my farm and making strides one day at a time.
Towards the end of 2009 i had 35pigs and piglets however in September that I had to start my 2 year diploma course in Business Administration.I asked one my cousin to come and help me with keeping the pigs and every two weeks I would be going to Kigumba and checking on the pigs, an so i set off for books, i sent money for feeding and other operational expenses between September 2009 to December 2010 and my cousin was doing well helping me. We had done so well and we now had a sizable number of pigs, my plan was to sell some during my break in holidays January 2011 but i to take my dad for treatment in India and that is when things started changing.
When i came back I found that my cousin had sold some of my pigs when I asked him for the money he could not give me accountability, my investigations led me to discover a changed lifestyle for he had taken to the bottle. I would not taken any chances so i decided to remove him from my project and called upon my bother Richard to help me. By March Richard was now in control and quite settled in.I spent a lot of time with the project during the transition and decided to grow my own feeds for the pigs so that I could reduce on always having to buy feeds.I was feeding them on maize brand and so we cultivated ten hectors of land with maize which did very well and when I got done with books in June, I joined Richard just in time for harvest. I am now mostly based at my farm and making strides one day at a time.
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