Ten years ago, in 2003, Dieudonne Haguminshuti was quite content in his new corporate job, having graduated the previous year. 

The job, with AFRICARE, an American NGO based in Rwanda, involved designing small income-generating projects for persons living with HIV, the NGO’s core mission.

A year into the job, he was posted to Kanombe and Kabuga, to develop poultry and piggery projects for people living with HIV.

"It is while working on these projects that I realised the un-tapped potential in agri-business,” he explains.

And he has never looked back.

This dream (agri-business) started while he was a student at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), where he graduated with a BBA (Finance) in 2002.

"I wanted to be involved in a development project and I chose agri-business because it is still a relatively virgin sector in the country,” he explains, adding: "I thought of rearing poultry, goats, or cows for export.”

As fate would have it, he had to briefly leave the country for the US, for his Masters. However, the impact of the poultry and piggery projects he had developed, and the potential they represented stayed with him.

In the US, he utilised every opportunity to learn about the agri-business sector there as compared to local trends.

Returning in 2007

Upon his return, the aspiring entrepreneur quickly drafted a proposal for a small poultry project and sent it to BRD. In it, he wanted Rwf 60m from the bank to start rearing layers. "When I talked to some of the bank staff, they said I needed collateral to secure the loan, but I didn’t have that collateral. All that I had was just the project proposal.”

In the absence of a solid asset to present to the bank, he was told, it would be next to impossible to get the loan.

He didn’t drop the idea but instead used it as an opportunity to start afresh.

"I reviewed my proposal, bearing in mind the country’s development needs. From my assessment, meat consumption was on the rise in the country, but production was on a decline.”

There were other issues as well. Things like irregularity of supply, the quality, and quantity of birds on the market were all lacking according to the assessment he made.

In the end, he decided to settle for a project that would supply chicken to clients and on the market regularly and on time –"on time meaning every time.”

Getting started

His first project proposal was submitted to the Business Development Fund (BDF), in April 2011. "After going through it, they forwarded it to the BRD (Rwanda Development Bank) for analysis and recommendation. I remember it took three months for the BDF just to analyse and understand what I had drafted in the proposal.

Eventually, he received a notification from the bank expressing its willingness to fund his project. But the bank spelt out his side of the bargain as well.

I was supposed to contribute 30% of the total cost of the project, but I had no money. All that I had was 4.5 ha of land.

Of the Rwf470m that was required, the bank would provide Rwf 300m, while he would have to piece together the remaining 170m.

As part of the bank agreement, Haguminshuti would also have to build two chicken houses, raise the foundations for three more, supply bricks, and bring water and electricity to the farm. Installing electricity initially proved difficult, because he had to access the grid from 1.5 km away, but thanks to some support from EWSA, it was soon installed.

Faced with such a scenario, he had to look far and wide for prospects.

At the time, he was working with CHF (now Global Communities), with his salary just enough for his home upkeep, not for investment.

However, this did not stop him from taking some salary advances just to keep going.

His wife’s financial experience came in handy as they searched for money.

In all, she helped mobilise a few local partners who made some contributions and obtained some shares in the company.

The whole process of mobilising these funds took one year and a half.

The farm

The farm, in Bugesera district in the Eastern Province is made of four chicken houses, each with a holding capacity of 25,000 birds, an automated slaughter line with a capacity of 1,000 birds per hour, cold room, and automated feeding and drinking lines. In other words, both feeding and slaying of the birds is not done by human beings, but machines.

They also operate a small feeds milling machine, which is a good way to cut expenditure on feeds. The mill mixes soya beans, maize, silver fish, cotton and sunflower cake, shells, salt, and some vitamins.

"We use Fuso trucks to transport day old chicks from Kampala, which takes about 12 hours because they have to be transported carefully and also there are strict border controls to ensure quality and safety.”

On average, the chicken mature at 42 days, which is when most of the birds are sent to the slaughter house. At this age, they weigh about 2.5 kg.

The main products the farm deals in are; whole chicken, chicken legs, chicken wings, gizzard, chicken liver, chicken boneless, and minced chicken.

Haguminshuti still looks to the day when his farm will be in position to supply a wider range of chicken products – things like chicken sausages, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, chicken bologna, chicken rolls, and chicken meat balls.

The farm’s market is quite varied, from renown names like Nakumatt and Simba supermarkets, Bourbon Coffee, hotels, restaurants and specialized meat shops, to large markets like Kimironko, Nyarugenge, and Nyabugogo.

These buy each chicken at Rwf 2,000, while the farm also operates a retail outlet in Kabeza, where it sells the chicken at Rwf 2,300.

The slaughter house is operational three times a week, but delivery happens daily, from 5:00 am to 8:00 pm, thanks to the cold room that can keep the meat fresh for some days.The loss rate from deaths stands at about 4%.

The farm employs 23 full-time staff and a similar number of casuals.

Challenges

Here, he cites water scarcity as the most acute problem on the farm, as in times when they go for weeks without water.

"There is a problem of poor quality feeds on the market, and price fluctuations. Maize bran is the worst as its price keeps changing almost daily.”

But just how much do these birds eat and drink?

"The first day, we used 150 kg of feeds, and 200 liters of water for 10.000 birds. This means that a day-old chick consumes about 15 grams of feed per day, and 20 cl of water.”

However, this consumption shoots up dramatically once the birds are fully grown.

For instance, at 42 days, each bird consumes about 190 grams of feed per day, meaning that for his flock of 10.000 birds, about a tonne of feeds is required on a daily basis.