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Kisoro potato farmer beats odds to achieve success
Joan Bahizi, shows off her Irish potato gardens
What you need to know:
Joan Bahizi started by renting out land to grow Irish potatoes, with time she was able to earn to purchase over eight hectares as she expanded the business and diversified. She told Robert Muhereza how she started out and how she made it.
My name is Joan Bahizi, 52 years of age, one of the seed potato producers in Kisoro District. I am a resident of Kisoro Hill Village, South Ward in Kisoro Town Council.
I opted for the production of seed potato and not ware potato, the one produced for home consumption, because of the lucrative profits though it requires a lot of time and patience if one is to produce quality seeds.
I started doing this in 2001 after an early retirement from Compassion, a Church of Uganda project in Kisoro, where I was earning about Shs350,000 per month as an accountant. I started with renting two pieces of land in total measuring about two acres. Now, I have been able to purchase up to about eight hectares for my business.
Meet demand
Under programmes supported by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the National Agricultural Advisory Services (Naads), I received adequate training in quality seed production but my main challenge is how to mechanise the operations for timely planting and efficient harvesting.
My dream is to get a tractor for timely preparation of the gardens to meet the increasing demand for the produce in Rwanda and D. R. Congo, which are the neighbouring countries to the district.
We have two main harvesting seasons for Irish potato in a year. So, I employ about 40 casual labourers at every planting and harvesting season but they take long to complete the work. Sometimes, they complete when almost the planting season is over, this in turn affects the harvests. My dream is to get a tractor for garden preparation and harvesting.
In a good season, I harvest about 200 bags of seed potato and sell each between Shs150,000 and Shs180,000 thus earning about Shs36m per season.
This money may sound like it is a lot but a large part of it is used to pay the casual labourers, in the control of pests and diseases, to purchase fertilisers as well as in sorting and transporting the quality seed from the gardens.
Diversifying
Quality seed is equivalent to the size of an egg and the larger ones are sold as ware potato for home consumption. Quality seed is not easy to prepare because a lot of patience is required in preserving it using specialised local materials. It takes about three to four weeks to prepare quality Irish potato seed.
Besides the Irish potatoes, I have also invested in growing climbing beans and rearing poultry to avoid those periods of redundancy when the potatoes, which are the main business, are still growing.
For the climbing beans, there are about 100 bags harvested every season from the three main gardens where I plant them. The earnings from this come to about Shs15m since a 100Kg bag costs about Shs150,000 each.
But the “take home” from this income is considerably reduced because like the potatoes, most of the profits are eaten up by covering costs of labour, setting up stakes for the climbing beans and applying fertilisers to enhance their growth.
As regards the challenges, the unpredictable weather patterns would be the main one. This is because bad weather is almost always responsible for poor harvests.
The poor weather also leads to poor seed production and because of this, the use of greenhouse technologies would probably the best option to counter this challenge.
Transporting of the produce is another challenge because of the rugged terrain of our district. It becomes expensive to hire lorries to transport my produce from the hilly gardens to my stores in Kisoro town.
There are other lesser challenges in addition to these ones I have mentioned. Some of them are countered via joint efforts as such farmer groups.
Achievements
I am a member of the Nyarusiza Irish Potato Growers Association, which was been formed to help unite Irish potato farmers in the district for collective marketing and quality control for both seed and ware potato production. I was elected to the leadership of the association. Currently, I am the chairperson of the association.
It is important to also note the achievements I have made at the personal level. Following the death of my husband Mr Peter Bahizi three years ago, I had to double my efforts to keep the family running normally.
I have been able to earn money to support my two biological and four foster children, who are studying in schools in Kampala. There is also that purchase of eight hectares of land in Nyarusiza Sub County, where the Irish potato gardens are located. I feel this is another major achievement and wise investment I have made.
And, I have used the proceeds from the business to construct a permanent building, which is my residence and also houses the store and sorting centre for the seed potato.
