Meet Former K24 Journalist Who Admits To Wishing He Would Get Fired Every Day. Finding a job is cumbersome and when you find it you hold on to it. It is like your little baby. Contrary to this view, this TV journalist wanted to get fired every single day for an year. Meet Caleb Karuga who wished to forfeit Ksh. 1.3m in benefits. Even though he was good at his job, he had a passion for farming but he was not courageous enough to quit his job. He did not get the satisfaction he desired. Fortunately for him his employer retrenched him alongside dozens of his colleagues. The founder and managing director of Wendy Farms told How we made it in Africa that as a child he hated farming. Like most kids in his rural village, he was used as free labour in the family’s agricultural ventures. It was while on assignment nearly four years ago that Karuga interviewed a professional mole catcher and felt motivated to go into agribusiness. Karuga noted that by his calculation the mole catcher probably took home at least Ksh. 90,000 per month, some thousands more than he was making as a TV reporter. Karuga then leased a one acre piece of land and started Wendy Farms. Today he runs three farms in Kikuyu, Nyeri and Nanyuki in where he keeps thousands of indigenous chicken, quails, guinea fowls and dairy goats and grows butternut, strawberry, sweet potatoes and sunflowers. His success story is inspiring but he underwent many challenges before things got better. It is reported that when Karuga first ventured into farming he acquired 200 pigs because pigs were the ‘it’ thing at the time. With no proper research, the venture failed. Caleb Karuga – The founder & Managing Director of Wendy Farms. He made another attempt, buying two hens and one cock he added more from neighboring farms. Since some of the hens were not vaccinated, in a span of about a month and a half he had lost about 200 hens. Not one to give up easily, Karuga purchased 500 day-old chicks from the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, but once again made loses as his employees sold the chickens in his absence. Karuga said that he has learnt a lot along the way and advices that agribusiness should not be romanticized. “I believe in going through the learning curve. When a venture fails I don’t take it personally. It is the business that has failed, not me. I might have made a mistake but I choose to keep on the ball. I don’t make permanent decisions based on temporary situations.” He warns that anyone looking to get into agribusiness needs to first have a passion for it and also do thorough research. As a parting shot the 31 year old says, “You can lose your job today. Don’t be obsessed with a formal job or get stuck at the plateau of success. Look for a way which you can have a plan B business to cushion you in hard times. Learn to create employment not look for it.” Courtesy: How We made It In Africa.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 20:18:16 +0000
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