A year after obtaining my degree in agricultural engineering at the Catholic University of Bukavu, I was appointed manager of a family chicken coop in the city of Bukavu (Ets. CARPE DIEM). The average number of hens were 100, but the major challenge was the high cost of chicken feeds which took 80% of the production cost.
As an agricultural engineer, this business was becoming less and less interesting and I thought of enlisting in the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC). A few days later, the person in charge of the henhouse requested me to prepare a business plan for the enlargement of the henhouse and to increase the number of hens to 1000 heads. At that time, the ideas of joining the army had popped into my head but I had to concentrate on the henhouse. Nevertheless, I asked the chef to help me take a loan of $500 (five hundred US dollars) so that I could start producing and supplying chicken feed on the farm. He supported me to acquire the loan and that was how PROVENDE KIVU was born.
I produced and sold feeds to the farm where I was working, and later other breeders started making order for the feeds because of its high quality. This enabled me to repay the loan of $500 within the period of three months.
In 2018, I received a call for tenders from BAIC (Bukavu Agrobusiness Incubation Center) which is an incubation center of UCB directed by Professor ESPOIR BISIMWA. I also received funding from RUFORUM through BAIC and I was able to purchase better equipment which increased the company’s turnover to $3500 (three thousand five hundred US dollars). My products were made available in the city of Bukavu through a salespoint in Nyawera.
In December 2019, PROVENDE KIVU was selected by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as part of the Integrated Agricultural Growth Program in the Great Lakes Region (PICAGL) project to produce fish feeds in the province of South Kivu. I became the Company manager and we were asked to buy two centenarians of 20 feet and land on which the FAO would build the factory. We bought the land and the factory was installed in Kashusha with all the necessary machinery and we are waiting for the official launch of the project to start producing general feeds.
In 2021, we received another funding from RUFORUM through the Field Attachment Program Awards (FAPA) which increased our production and we were able to create more jobs for the people in KASHUS.
Currently, we are operating the factory in Kashusha as we wait for the official launch of the project. The journey had not been easy, but thanks to the intervention from the UCB through BAIC, RUFORUM, FAO, PICAGL project and the population of Kashusha and Kabare for having welcomed the project with open arms.
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