Placide Nizeyimana’s garlic farm is located in Northern Province’s Gakenke District where he was born and bred.

He grows garlic on three hectares of land, which he later processes into garlic drink, known as ‘kaanize’ for local consumption.

The thirty-year-old’s journey started back in 2012 when he completed high school education.

Since he didn’t have enough capital to start the business, he used the Rwf 30,000 he had at hand to start a mini-cinema at his local market showing films on a small television he borrowed from a friend.

"Back in the village, not everyone can access electricity in their homes. I used this chance to entertain people and the results were encouraging since I got many customers from young people to adults,” he said.

He later managed to buy a bigger screen which he used to show football matches as well.

The entrepreneur said his mission was to venture into agriculture, and that the reason behind it was to gather enough capital for his long term plan.

Prior to that, they didn’t have access to electricity in his entire village, it was in 2012 that they were connected to the grid.

"I wanted to use this opportunity as well so that I can venture into agriculture and make good use of the power especially in processing,” he said.

He added that most people in rural areas often miss out on opportunities because of lack of electricity.

Five years down the line, he embarked on growing garlic in 2018, with a capital of Rwf 200,000 under his company Bahoneza Rwanda Ltd.

Depending on a season, he said he harvests up to 100 kg per harvest after planting 10kg of garlic.

Garlic is harvested twice a year and is ready for harvesting when the leaves wither. 

Mid last year, he started processing it into a drink and selling to consumers in his home town and other markets, he has some customers who buy the drink on a daily basis. 

He said that he chose garlic was because of its enormous health benefits. 

However, Nizeyimana noted that he found out that despite its benefits, still many people will avoid using because of its smell.

"To make it easy to consume, I decided to process it into a drink because in this form, the smell is faint, unlike when used while in its raw form, where the smell is concentrated and lasts for long,” he said.

Studies have shown that garlic drink could be a good remedy for some of the health conditions that most people deal with.

It helps in the prevention of some chronic diseases. It’s also popular among those seeking to lose weight as well as those who are battling obesity.

Moving forward

Nizeyimana is among the top 50 young innovators in the country recognized by Youth Connekt Award in 2019.

With a revenue of about Rwf 400,000 a month, he has been able to employ eight workers and planning to add more in future.

Since the business is in its early stage, he said in future he plans to buy machines to improve processing as well as expand this enterprise in all aspects.

He uses a blender to turn the garlic into a drink, which according to him consumes a lot of time, therefore, a challenge when it comes to time management 

His advice to fellow young people is that they should focus on one venture that they are passionate about as opposed to many which could lead them to lose focus.  

Going by the government’s blueprint for development, the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1) access to electricity will be scaled up to 100 per cent by 2024 with the ongoing expansion of the grid and private sector cooperation.  This is among other things expected to reduce the cost of doing business and facilitate trade.