12 Sep 2017

Thirty-one-year-old Mr Biki Baraedi has always shown that he will grow up to be an entrepreneur.

While his age mates played football around the streets and other different games, he would be selling sweets and ice-pops.

He continued with this trend until he grew up, and at some point, he was forced to make serious life changing decisions. He quit his good paying job so as to build his passion as a full time entrepreneur.

“I had to quit my job despite that it was well paying, my intention was to pursue my interests and live my passion as an entrepreneur,” he said.

In 2003, he tried his luck in a horticulture project, and although it was a promising project, especially that there was always a demand of vegetables by individuals and supermarkets, he could not perform up to satisfaction.

Some of the challenges he encountered were largely due to lack of his own business plot and other relevant resources.

Though such challenges hit him hard, he did not despair and instead bought vegetables in bulk and supplied different individuals and supermarkets.

“As my project failed to do well, I had to strategies and I settled to supply some individuals and customers with vegetables. The intention was to build a clientele database,” he said.

Mr Baraedi’s significant breakthrough was last year when he received P100 000 through the Youth Development Fund (YDF).

With the funds, he managed to start afresh by registering his business as New Look Same Promise Farm.

“My business name explains that I am coming with a new image, but my promise of good quality products still stands,” he said.

Mr Baraedi cultivates vegetables such as cabbage, tomatoes, onions, beetroot, pumpkin, rape and others depending on the season.

New Look Same Promise Farm has become a force to reckon with. The production of good quality products, impressive clientele database and satisfying profit margins says it all.

Mr Baraedi operates from Ditladi and this is an advantage because of the village’s proximity to Tonota and other surrounding areas which boost his clientele database.

Currently, he supplies reputable supermarkets in Tonota and Francistown. He also supplies different vendors and other individuals.

“I currently supply cabbage to different supermarkets and individuals, I sack contains seven heads of cabbages and each sells at P70 while individual cabbage head price stands at P8 per head,” he said.

As some of the youth who are into the same project always feel challenged due to shortage of water, Mr Baraedi has a different story to tell.

He operates his project along the Shashe River, thus giving him an opportunity to access water in abundance from the river.

Every project has its own challenges, New Look Same Promise Farm has also not been spared from such challenges.

Mr Baraedi complains of pests and lack of electricity at the farm for irrigation. He is however working to tackle the challenges, citing the use of a generator to pump water from the river.

He said as for the pests, they apply prescribed pesticides and is usually done late evening when the sun sets.

“Pests turn to be troublesome at night when temperatures are cool, this is when they multiply. During the day they hide away, as such we decided to spray crops late in the evening so as to attack them in large numbers,’’ he said.

Mr Baraedi noted that though horticulture project brings in good proceeds, this called for determination and focus, citing that one should have a hand on attitude and refrain to rely on employees only.

The youthful farmer is one of those who heeded the call that beneficiaries of different government empowerment initiatives be committed to their projects so as to create employment opportunities for other youth.

He currently has three permanent employees and only engages casual labourers during the harvesting period.

The description of a go-getter suits Mr Baraedi, who is always on the look-out for other business opportunities.

With part of his profit, he has been able to purchase broiler chickens and layers so as to add variety to his business.

Mr Baraedi further acknowledged the support he had always received from his wife ever since he stated his business.

Other aspects that helped him sail through the challenges he encountered was the short training courses he underwent at Impala. He said he was taught aspects of horticulture management and other business related issues. Ends