When John Kato and Emmanuel Karama graduated from Uganda Christian University (UCU) in February, they were sure they would never look for jobs due to their creative and enterprising minds.
Barely three months after Kato graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Management, and Karama in Procurement and Logistics Management, the duo have already gotten to work and invested in aquaculture near Katosi fish landing site, about 43km from Mukono town.
With an initial investment of Shs 35m, Karama and Kato are positive they will generate at least Shs 20m every month from one fish cage.
HOW THEY STARTED
“During our last semester, our lecturer came and told us to develop business ideas. He encouraged us to do this in groups if we were to succeed,” recalls Karama, who is the chief executive officer (CEO) of the farm.
Karama had known Kato since high school. They had met at a rugby match in 2007 at St Mary’s College Kisubi, where Karama was in senior two, while Kato was in senior three at King’s College Budo. Their friendship has grown since then.
They had different ideas including piggery, and exporting agricultural produce to European countries. However, they decided to settle for aquaculture.
“To come up with a perfect business plan, you have to think about a problem and come up with a solution. This is then followed by a business idea. From this, we came up with the idea of fish farming because we were convinced that demand for fish outweighs its supply,” Karama says.
Drafting a proposal took them two months because they had to conduct enough research about the business. During their research, they were told that fish farming wasn’t an easy venture for it called for a lot of commitment. They were, however, encouraged by the huge market for fish, both locally and internationally.
Kato remembers one farmer, Dr Emma Naluyima of Entebbe, who urged them not to worry about aquaculture.
“We read about her and decided to meet her. On meeting her, she encouraged us to become professional farmers,” Kato says.
Initially, they had intended to farm the fish in ponds. But after ample research, they realised ponds would be more expensive in the long run; so, they chose to settle for cages.
“In cages, the fish are in their natural habitat and it would take about six months to mature and be ready for sale. For the ponds, fish can take about eight months to mature because water quality goes down,” says Karama.
In October 2014, their lecturer asked them to get ready as they were about to present their proposals to Go-Africa, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) funded by Americans. Go-Africa partners with UCU to support enterprising students in a bid to fight unemployment in Uganda.
On October 29, 2014, during a business plan competition at UCU, 14 ideas were presented, out of which five were successful with EMJO Group, owned by Kato and Karama, emerging the best. It was funded with $36,000.
After one year in operation, this money was supposed to be paid back in instalments. Other successful ideas in maize milling, fashion and design project, a mushroom project, among others, were funded.
Speaking to The Observer, Isaac Wasswa Katono, the associate dean of Faculty of Business and Administration at UCU, said that after realising it was difficult for young graduates to get jobs, they encouraged students to develop ideas that could help them create their own employment.
“Most of our students could ask us about start-up capital after graduation. We were pleased when Go-Africa agreed to fund our students’ business ideas through a business plan competition,” Katono said.
IMPLEMENTING THE PLAN
The $36,000, about Shs 94m at the time, would be released in three phases. In April this year, the first batch of Shs 32m was released.
“Since we had already known where to set our farm, we went and consulted Mukono district fisheries office, from where we were advised to reach locals and create a rapporteur with them. Many of them rejected us because most of them were illegal fishers,” Karama says.
When this failed, the young graduands moved a few steps to another village, where they were easily welcomed. At Mpunge, near Bulebi fishing village, they acquired an acre of land, bordering Lake Victoria. Here, they installed their first fish cage on April 14.
From the Lweeza-based Owan Mwan Aquaculture Ltd, they bought the cage at Shs 3.7m and transported it at Shs 500,000. The cage would accommodate up to 5,000 fingerlings, which they bought at Shs 2.1m. Fingerlings (young fish) are transported either early in the morning or late in the evening with an oxygen cylinder.
It cost them more than Shs 300,000 to do that. Some of the fingerlings die during transportation due to injuries, whereas others, especially weak ones, die in the cage due to failure to adapt to the new environment.
From their cage so far, about 800 fingerlings have died, but they say the situation is now under control.
Kato and Karama started with 40kg of fish feed, which they bought at Shs 130,000 from Ugachick Poultry Breeders. For fingerlings of between one and two months, feeds must have 35 per cent of protein content. By six months, fish should be more than 500g and ready for sale if fed properly.
MARKET
For now, the two say they will begin with wholesale. A kilogram of fish currently costs between Shs 7,000 and Shs 10,000 Kato and Karama are optimistic they will export their fish. In the long run, they intend to construct a fish processing plant and add value to their fish so they could get more money.
They also intend to procure up to five fish cages, one after every thirty days. According to Kato, if they could pay back the loan in time (three years), they could become Uganda’s leading providers of farmed fish in less than five years.
The Observer
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