30 Jan 2014

A combination of passion, hard work and dedication are means to the success of any project.

This is corroborated by one youth entrepreneur, Mr Keolebogile Tshekiso of Tobela in the Mahalapye Sub-district who undertook egg production to make a living and supply the Shoshong community.

Speaking in an interview, Mr Tshekiso said his passion for egg production started during agriculture lessons when he was a student at Shoshong Senior Secondary School. He said he also loved horticulture, which was why he went on to study it at Shoshong Brigade.

Mr Tshekiso said he started operating his egg production farm in November 2013 after he was funded with P100 000 by the Youth Development Fund (YDF) to start his enterprise in a crop production area outskirts of Tobela.

He said business was going so well that he could barely keep up with demand. “Business is going well, the market is growing,” he said. “On a good day I make P350.” He added that sometime he was unable to cope with the market.

He supplies residents and small businesses in Shoshong with eggs. He said the demand for eggs was high in Shoshong. He explained that he could not supply big entities such as Choppies supermarket because his production was low.

Explaining how egg production worked, Mr Tshekiso said each layer laid one egg per day and six eggs per week. After eggs have been laid he cleans them up, grades them according to their different sizes and packages them before delivering them to customers. He takes the eggs from production site to the bus stop using his bicycle.

From the bus stop he gets transport to Shoshong where he delivers eggs to his clients. A dozen fetches P12.50. Like every business out there, Mr Tshekiso’s poultry farm has its own share of challenges. “Since I transport the eggs using a bicycle on a curvy and bouncy road some eggs end up breaking along the way,” he said.

He added that late delivery of eggs to clients due to scarce transport resulted in some of his customers losing faith in him. Another challenge is hot weather, which causes eggs to go bad quickly.

 So, he always tries to get them to customers fast, thus disrupting his other works in the poultry farm.  The other challenge he faces is the expensive poultry feed. “When livestock feeds’ prices were reduced poultry feeds prices remained the same,” he said. “The layers I have feed a lot. I need 12.5 Kilograms of poultry feed to feed them for a day.”

Pilferage by his then staff members also once had a negative effect on his business, with some workers stealing both the chickens and the eggs. He had to deduct money from their wages or dismiss them from work. As a result, he is currently left with one employee.

To diversify his business, Mr Tshekiso said he used manure generated by the layers in his nearby horticulture field and sells some to horticulture farmers.  He also says he sells his layers to the public once they are past their productive age.

He plans to increase the number of his layers so that he could increase egg production to meet the demands. His advice to young people who want to start their own businesses and uplift themselves economically is to apply for government funding like YDF and give their projects love and attention.

“Only love for the project can see an entrepreneur overcoming the challenges the business may face from time to time,” he said. ENDS