Minting money from her farm

Having worked in a formal set up for many years, Eva Birungi longed to start a business that would generate more money in the comfort of her home.
In 2016, with capital worth Shs500,000 from her monthly salary, Birungi bought her first batch of layer birds.
Before she could start reaping, Birungi lost 360 of the birds to New Castle disease. It is at this point, in 2017, that she chose to quit her eight to five pm job to concentrate on management and maintenance of her farm.

Unmet need
Birungi says: “When I was working, I had an unfulfilled need to start a business. I needed to supplement my income to reduce dependence on salary. When salary is paid, for most of the workers, it is spent in the first one or two weeks of the month and they go broke for the rest of the month. This cycle was sickening.”
But because Birungi’s resolve to make her business work was greater than her loss, she sought new ways of making her project successful. After picking up the pieces, she bought another batch of 510 layer birds, which survived.

How she started
Birungi says: “When that batch of birds started laying eggs, my husband bought 1,020 birds using the proceeds from egg sales.”
She says as the business expanded, with it came two challenges; increased number of broken eggs and excessive manure output from the farm.
“Learning that bakeries and snack businesses use eggs quite often, we decided to start a bakery to make use of eggs that we would otherwise lose. That was the birth of Passion Bakes- a bakery business that bakes cakes, pastries and snacks for sale at all functions,” Birungi says.
With the second challenge, Birungi gave away some of the manure to neighbouring farmers but they could not absorb it all, yet its presence caused them encumbrances such as the stench.

Diversifying the business
At that point, she says there was no storage facility to absorb all the manure. “We discovered that we could put animal waste to better use by producing biogas. We invested in a biogas digester to absorb all the manure. However, the digester could only absorb a quarter of the day’s manure. This pushed us into carrying out more research. We found out that biomass briquettes would be a great way to solve the waste challenge once and for all,” Birungi recollects.
She adds: “We made samples of the briquettes and discovered that they were better than charcoal and it was a way of conserving the environment. We have since developed simple technologies to ably produce compressed briquettes from the manure in bigger quantities.”
Birungi continues to learn from her farm and she got feedback from her clients that while charcoal lit well with paper, it was not the same case with briquettes.
She says: “It was then, through trial and error, that we established we could also make stove lighters from manure which could light for up to 10 minutes. To date, we make charcoal lighters which light the briquettes perfectly well. I no longer have any manure to give away for free. I sell each sack at Shs5,000.”
Besides the energy sources, Birungi also ventured into vermiculture- (the cultivation of earthworms, especially in order to use them to convert organic waste into fertiliser) and the soil from this is what she uses for vertical urban gardening which focuses on production of vegetables for home use and for sale.
The fertile soils produced more vegetables that Birungi had to look for ways to gain from it rather than make losses. She says she decided to venture into rabbit keeping which ate the vegetables. She also intends to add value to rabbits and sell meat products in supermarkets and hotels.
All these activities are done under a registered company- My Passion Farm, according to Birungi. She says: “We market and sell our products to our workmates, friends and family and social media platforms such as WhatsApp groups and Facebook.”

Challenges
While Birungi plans to expand her business to provide more job and training opportunities to women and youth, the funds to see this dream become a reality are still limited.
In terms of information technology, Birungi says they are planning to upgrade biogas but the current technology is wanting.

Business mentorship
“I gained insights on book-keeping, financial management, marketing, investment and business performance,” Birungi shares.

Future plans
She says she plans to expand the business to create more employment opportunities for women and youth. “I envision a training centre to empower women and youth in business.”

Advice
Birungi believes that everything is possible with hard work and persistence.

Achievements
With all the proceeds re-invested to expand the business, Passion Farm is growing bigger and better.
Birungi says: “I have expanded my social circles from just family, friends and workmates to customers, suppliers and business partners.”