Milking the farm off millions

Protus Onyango

When Priscillah Chepkoech was born 42 years ago at Chororget Village of Baringo County, she loved accompanying her parents to the farm.

As a young girl, she could join her elder siblings to look after their cattle. And through her education life, she knew her place was at the farm, where she could dirty her hands, not in posh offices.

"I always wanted to soil my hands and took agriculture seriously as a lesson in my high school," Chepkoech says.

Priscillah Chepkoech has made millions by touching everything on the farm — from keeping dairy animals, poultry and pigs.

Upon completion of high school, Chepkoech married her sweetheart, Samson Cherutich, who promptly handed Sh30,000 to start a business of her choice.

"After scouting around, I settled on selling stationery. I opened a small shop in Nairobi and sold paper, rulers and other small items to parents and schools," she says of her first business experience.

"I sometimes walked to deliver the products to my clients," she recalls.

When her husband bought a one-acre farm at Oleroimen Village in Kiserian Township, she promptly quit tried her hand in farming.

"I started off with one cow in 2003. But now, mine is a one-acre model farm that earns me big cash," she says with a sense of pride.

"This has been possible because of the support I got from my husband. He has been pillar," says the mother of three.

And hers has been a journey of living one day at a time, at times burning her fingers as she tried out something new and other times laughing all the way to the bank.

In 2003, Chepkoech used Sh50,000 she had accumulated while selling stationery to buy a cow, which used to give her 18 litres of milk daily.

Gradual growth

Two years later, she sold the cow, topped up and bought a superior dairy breed at Sh80,000 that gave 20 litres of milk per day.

Later, she sold it and used Sh123,000 to buy another breed that gave her 30 litres of milk daily.

"Today, I have 60 cows that give me 50 litres each, daily. A litre is currently sold at Sh50," Chepkoech says.

At the time she was venturing into dairy, she also tried her hand at poultry. Initially, she bought 100 chicks at Sh35 each. Now she has 2,000 layers, 1,000 broilers and 300 mixed breed chicken: a crossbreed of layers and broilers.

"I now sell the chicks at Sh100 each. The chicken, which feed twice a day, take four months to lay eggs," she says.

"That means I will use over Sh900,000 to feed my 1,000 layers before they begin laying eggs to sell," she explains.

"I also sell a kilo of broilers at Sh550," she says, adding that the crossbred cocks, which she says at Sh800, are more succulent than the broilers.

When the cows give birth, all bulls are sold at one week for Sh3,000 each and colostrum is sold at Sh80 per litre to the buyers to feed the young bulls.

Chepkoech has also ventured into pig husbandry. She has 100 pigs that are sold to Farmers Choice at eight months.

"The female pigs give birth to 10-15 piglets, three times a year and after the eight months, we sell them at Sh195 per kilo," she says.

Due to high demand for her products, Chepkoech has opened a shop to sell her products under the brand name — Sogoon Products at Olympic Estate in Kibera.

The farmer has adopted many measures to cut down on costs. She sieves chicken droppings to use them as cow feed. She has also put up a silo to store fermented feed called silage from a mixture of Napier grass, molasses and other waste food products.

"It is designed to keep the contents in low oxygen atmosphere at all times hence keeping the fermented contents in a high quality state," she notes.

Chepkoech also owns a biogas plant unit, which she constructed, with the help of GTZ, a German NGO that assists in construction for individuals who have procured the necessary materials for establishment.

The unit generates gas used to light the chicken and dairy units from decomposed animal and vegetable waste. With the unpredictable cost of fuel, this alternative source of energy has cut down her energy cost.

"I now don’t buy gas. Most people should be encouraged to tap this energy," she says.

Though she gets good money from her pig business, she notes that it is through sheer willpower that she did not give up.

"Embracing pig rearing is the biggest mistake I have ever made in my business life. I started it without prior knowledge and research," she confesses.

"After spending Sh2 million for equipment and putting up the rearing unit, I made no money in the first year and I almost saw all my investment go down the drain," she adds.

"But I consulted experts who saved me. I don’t regret now," says the entrepreneur, who also spent Sh1.3 million to erect sheds for the cows and chicken.

Patient wait

Her secrets to success include patience, persistence and consistence. To those who would like to be farmers, she advises, "be patient because business takes long to pick up."

Start small and grow gradually. Most farmers give up with the first indication of competition instead of struggling to beat the challenge.

She says inflation has resulted in sharp price increment for animal feeds, forcing farmers to increase the prices of their products at the expense of the consumer.

"The price of broiler starter mash has been raised from Sh1,600 to Sh4,000 while that of broiler finisher has moved up from Sh2,600 to Sh3,500," she says.

She wants the government to intervene and lower the costs of the feeds so that they don’t burden the buyers.

"The sharp increase in interest rates will drive us out of business because some of us can’t expand or repay our loans," she notes.

She plans to acquire better cow breeds that will each give her 60 litres of milk daily and put up a plant to produce yoghurt and related products.