Diversification helps Mugarura improve her financial earnings

A newly-built big house stands just behind an old and dilapidated one, which is small and built out of mud and wattle in the relatively remote Nyakinengo village, Nyabubare Sub-county in Bushenyi District.
An elderly woman emerges from the new house carrying a tray of eggs, which she later gives to a customer in exchange for Shs7, 500.
This is the home Florence Mugarura, 60, who manages four enterprises on her two-acre piece of land.
The enterprises include poultry, piggery, fish farming and pineapple wine brewing.
She says enterprise diversification is beneficial to her because it ensures a regular flow of returns as different enterprises are ready for the market at different times.
Mugarura used proceeds from her farm to build the new house where she now lives with her family.
Mugarura owns three fish ponds which all in total have 10,000 fish that include tilapia and cat fish. She has a piggery unit of 16 pigs, a poultry unit of 1,500 kuroiler layer birds and pineapple wine brewing project.

How she started
Mugarura says before she took on commercial farming, nine years ago, she used to be a subsistence farmer. She grew bananas, maize and cassava for her family’s consumption and at times sold the surplus.
This, she says, made her live a humble life, given that her husband was earning little from his job.
However, as a member of Kyamuhunga People’s Savings and Credit cooperative society Ltd, in Bushenyi District, Mugarura contemplated how she could utilize the financial institution to improve her meager income.
“I had land but lacked financial capital. I got a loan of Shs1m from the Sacco, which I used to a start a poultry unit of 5,000 layer birds,” Mugarura says.
However, Mugarura has subsequently taken a number of agricultural loans from the financial institution.
The Sacco, according to Sharon Nahabwe, its General manger, is able to offer agricultural loans at a low interest rate because of the support it received from Agribusiness trust (aBi trust).
“I used some of the loan money to buy the birds, feeds and iron sheets for roofing the shelter,” she says.
After six months, the birds started laying eggs. They layed eggs for one year and from that she earned about Shs4.8m, getting a profit of about Shs2.5m.
However, after realizing that she spent much money on looking after the layer birds, especially on feeds yet they take longer to lay eggs, she has since switched to rearing kuroiler birds.
“Currently, I have a poultry unit of 1, 500 kuroilers, which I sell after only five months at between Shs20, 000 and Shs30, 000,” she says.
Mugarura says when the kuroiler birds lay eggs, she takes them (eggs) for hatching.
She is charged Shs200 per hatched egg and Shs100 for vaccination per chick.
Because of this, she notes, she doesnt have to incur a high cost of buying kuroiler chicks which are Shs2, 800 each.

Piggery
In the piggery unit, she has 16 pigs of the Landrace and Large White breeds. Mugarura says she rears these breeds because they are big and also produce many piglets. She says she sometimes feeds them on chicken droppings, which cuts the cost of buying feeds. She sells a big one, of about 100kg, at Shs600, 000 to local pork traders.
Achievements
Besides building a permanent home, she says that she has been able to pay for her siblings’ education to university level.
Mugarura adds that she has also bought a motor-cycle which helps her in transportation of her farm products.

Challenges
The biggest challenge she faces are diseases which attack her pigs and chicken. These sometimes lead to losses so she has to incur a cost to vaccinate the birds or treat the pigs.
The high cost of feeds for both pigs and chicken is a major challenge that cuts on her profits.
She also lacks a fish net for catching fish so she has to drain the ponds of all the water when she wants to harvest the fish, which also kills immature fish.
She also revealed that sometimes the thieves make their way to her mixed farm.

Wine brewing
Mugarura has also ventured heavily in winery.
The merchant of all trades says she brews her wine majorly from ripen pineapples which she buys at garden price of Shs700 to Shs1, 000 depending on their availability.
“I got training in pineapple wine brewing from Caritas Uganda so I bought utensils and containers which I use to store the wine as it matures,” Mugarura says, adding, “Every month I have three j20-litre errycans of wine ready for sale.”
She sells a bottle at Shs10, 000 and a 20-litre jerrycan at Shs200, 000. So in a year she earns about Shs8m from this enterprise.
Besides the walk-ins, Mugarura says she sells her wine in super markets in Mbarara, Bushenyi districts.

Fish farming
To start fish farming, Mugarura used local and family labour to excavate the ponds.
She dug them in a swampy area so she did not find any challenges in getting water.
She however says one should be very careful in the selection of the site for the ponds as fish doesn’t thrive in salty water.
In her ponds, Mugarura keeps the cat fish and tilapia. “After three months one should be cashing in on tilapia while the cat fish matures,” she adds.
She sells her tilapia at Shs4, 000 to Shs7, 000 depending on the size while the cat fish goes for Shs16, 000 a kilogramme.