Lasway shows way forward in modern farming practices

Dar es Salaam. It was an idea that was born out of the desire to be self-employed – and one that has since grown to become a multi-million shilling reality!

Upon completing his Bachelor’s degree course in Irrigation and Water Resources Engineering at the Sokoine University of Agriculture (Sua) in Morogoro Region in 2017, 28-year old Octavian Lasway wasted no time.

Contrary to what some graduates normally do – waiting to be formally employed for a salary – Mr Lasway put to direct use what he had learned at Sua with considerable derring-do.

Today, the young man has a positive tale to tell.

Mr Lasway was born and bred in Rombo District on the slopes on the world-famous Mount Kilimanjaro. But he has made Morogoro, the region of his alma mater, his adopted home.

When he was still a student, he recalls, he wanted to drop out of college in his second year at Sua after noting that what he was being taught at the time was not in congruence with what prospective farmers should be learning. But, on listening to the advice from trusted friends, he persevered with formal learning in the happy knowledge that could learn by doing what he wanted to do while continuing with formal studies.

In 2015, he started studying short courses online which were intended to enable him to acquire different skills that would add value to his carrier.

“In 2016, I started the business of soil test for farmers who paid me around Sh150,000. That was how and where I amassed the initial capital of Sh600,000 with which to form my own company in 2017 in the name and style of ‘Holy Green Agric Group Ltd,’” he says.

“But before starting the company, I opened a blog on the ubiquitous Internet concerning agricultural issues where I wrote articles on irrigation and soil matters. People started to contact me for advice and my services.

“In fact, the contacts and resulting activities were so many that I decided to enlist my friend to be my business partner, thus making us a team of two – with me as the founder of the company,” he says.

Among other things, Holy Green Agric Group deals with soil testing and analysis, greenhouses construction, irrigation systems designing and installation, rainwater harvesting, sprinkler irrigation systems and farms planning and layout designing.

In due course of time and events, the company has recorded some Sh100 million in operating capital, as well as thousands of farmers, including the youth and women, who are already benefiting from the company’s activities in terms of agricultural production.

Mr Lasway recalls that, as early as when he was at High School, he wanted to be an entrepreneur, with the noble goal of helping Tanzanian communities with best farming practices, including functional irrigation farming by smallholders.

He says that he was motivated to specialise in irrigation farming in his studies partly by the fact that about 65 percent of Tanzanians of working age are farmers – but a majority of whom still indulge in traditional farming.

If nothing else, this results in low farm yields in terms of quality and quantities. Thus, the otherwise huge agricultural potential mostly remains latent, waiting to be functionally exploited in full and contribute to sustainable socioeconomic development across the country.

One among the challenges that lead to measly yields is the lack of water for irrigation, Mr Lasway says – adding that this is why Holy Green Agric Group embarked upon the provision of state-of-the-art irrigation technology that consumes small amounts of water on farms.

This goes a long way in helping smallholder farmers to produce and survive.

Achievements

To that very noble end, the company has come up with its own technology after doing research and discovering that what is imported from other countries was not friendly to the Tanzanian environment. After all, the costs of the irrigation systems are invariably higher, and deteriorate early even as they take a lot of time, water and efforts to irrigate a farm.

On the top of that, farmers were not able to increase the size of their farms due to the purchase costs of irrigation technologies.

This year, therefore, the company introduced a new affordable ‘Mkulima Irrigation Drip Line’ irrigation technology.

The new technology has been designed in Tanzania, although production thereof is done in India.

“It takes only 45 minutes to irrigate one hectare of a farm, using less water by 60 percent compared to other irrigation systems – and the price is cheap compared to the other irrigation systems,” Mr Lasway says, adding somewhat philosophically: “This is why a farmer in Tanzania should buy our technology and not another...!”

According to the young entrepreneur, their ‘Mkulima Irrigation’ system that is designed to irrigate a hectare of farmland costs Sh2.2 million – compared to Sh3 million for other systems.

Lasting for an average of seven years of continuous use, the local system furthermore comes with free consultation and installation services for the farmer.

“In the previous years we were fixing between 150 hectares and 200 hectares per year. But the new technology per year can fix 350 hectares – and demand for it is high. In addition to this, the company is working with some financial institutions in lending to farmers so that they can purchase the technology,” he revealed.

The company currently employs three permanent workers, while more than 65 youths work on temporary terms.

“We have been able to help farming communities, whereby we serve more than 3,000 farmers directly, face to face, annually – and reach more than 20,000 farmers online,” he virtually boasts.

“Working in collaboration with the minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (who is responsible for Policy, Parliamentary Affairs, Labour, Employment, Youth and the Disabled), we have trained a total of 700 youths in 35 district councils on how to construct affordable greenhouses.

“Another 3,600 youths from the same councils were trained in horticulture in the greenhouses – and some of them have already harvested and marketed their produce,” Mr Lasway says. Despite the relatively great success, the issue of capital is still problematic.

“You can get a huge deal – but you do not have the equipment. There is a tender advertised, and for which you have to post a 10 percent bond... We fail to meet such requirements and, so, at the beginning we were able to do small jobs only,” Mr Lasway laments.

“But, in business there are things which we didn’t know at the beginning – such as laws, regulations and official policy.

“But, as the days went by, we learnt a lot, which has helped us to achieve much, and improve the way we do business,” he says – pontificating that it is important for young people who start business to continue learning...”

Opportunities

Mr Lasway also said that the government has recently announced its intention to expand irrigation farming from the current 561,383 hectares to 1.2 million hectares by 2025 so as to reduce the crippling dependence on rain-fed agriculture.

“This coming from the government gives us much hope, as we see the business growing more, thus benefiting more youths and women in particular, and farmers in general, in the process. We believe that, by the National Development Vision-2025, Tanzania’s agriculture would have changed for the better,” Mr Lasway said.