When you have built up your farm, starting from bare ground and project by project converted into a thriving food-producing machine, what else is there to do? Humphrey Sekeleti has not stopped since he started three years ago building his first fishpond. One project has followed the other, with chickens being his last endeavor. I was curious to know what Humphrey thought about the future of his farm, will he be adding new projects, or expanding the existing ones, or is this enough?
Up to now, Humphrey has been very methodical in his approach. He has planned his projects carefully but kept his plans flexible enough to meet the changing environment and challenges. But let’s see what he has to say.
“Despite all challenges, I am satisfied with the result of the projects we have already undertaken. It is always difficult to try to analyze the future, but I feel we can dive our activities into two areas”, Humphrey tells me.
“First, we want to expand the current projects. After solving the water issues by adding boreholes and using solar pumps to drive a modern irrigation system, we would like to expand our vegetable production. Both increase the volume of our current crops but add new ones as well. The orchard can be expanded, and we do have space to add fishponds. It is important to evaluate each project and increase each cycle if the market condition allows it”.
“Second, we have our eyes on new projects to reduce risk and increase our portfolio. While we will continue growing our chicken operation, we are planning to add pigs and goats. We have been studying the market demand and we feel these projects will be a great fit, complement our other offerings, and allow us to better meet market demand”.
“I would like for my farm to be big enough to be considered the main supplier in our region, but also be able to supply beyond our current market area. To do that it is necessary to increase our output”.
How do you plan to do this? “There are too many details to list here, but there are a few fundamental rules we have followed up to now and have worked well. For example, we try to plan each project carefully enough to avoid surprises after we have started. It has also been important for us not to overextend us. If we cannot afford a project, we will postpone it until we can, and focus on smaller projects we can manage. Then, once we are ready, we will retake the original project”.
“Resource management is so important”, Humphrey adds. “When we have time available, we try to occupy it with a project. For instance, after completing our fishponds, we had to wait until the fish matured. Instead of waiting, we started the orchard, and then the vegetable garden. The same applies to other resources, you must maximize their uses, otherwise, you are losing an opportunity”.
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