SMEs digest: ‘Young World Feeders’ on the path to success

Dar es Salaam. Functional marketing strategies, including keeping a customers’ database, are among the reasons for a young entrepreneur, Mr Ray Mark, has succeeded in horticultural farming – success that is attracting more youth to the agriculture sector.

This is especially considering that Mr Mark is currently using his farm to assist students in field training.

According to him, young people – many of them in training colleges – spend more time in the classroom than in the field. Largely as a result of this, they almost invariably fail to take up agricultural activities after graduating because they know very little or nothing practical about agriculture.

The young Mark – who just ended with Form Four formal education – had no working knowledge of agriculture. He, therefore, decided to learn about agriculture by reading various publications on the social media – and, later, took short courses on the subject.

Speaking to The Citizen’s SMEs Digest, Mr Mark said “I never thought of agriculture in my future. But, one fateful day in 2011, I heard some stakeholders talking about food security – and that entirely changed my life... I will build my dream through the agricultural sector,” he pontificated.

Mr Mark is the founder of the Young World Feeders (YWF), an agricultural community-based organisation which embarked in horticultural crops production and marketing.

YWF’s strategic objective is to empower semi-literate youth and unemployed college graduates to engage in economically-productive activities, including organic food production, poultry keeping and fish farming.

The ten-acre YWF farm is located in Dodoma, on which they grow tomatoes, green, red and yellow capsicum, okra, cabbages, cucumbers, leafy vegetables, as well as rear assorted fish, including especially tilapia and catfish.

“Agriculture is a vital sector of the economy due to its various benefits, and YWF focuses on reducing the health risks that are inherent in the consumption of inorganic foods. We are engaged in the production of safe and nutritious food products so as to enhancing food security in Tanzania and the world at large,” Mr Mark says.

Why horticultural farming

“I conceived the idea to form YWF in 2011 after I had observed that, firstly: there was a decrease in food production both in quantitative and qualitative terms due to the ongoing climate change caused by global warming and environmental degradation,” he told SMEs Digest.

“When I started this farm, I had no capital of my own, and I was given seeds and seedlings by my neighbours. In fact, even the farm was hived off family land. And, I decided to invest in the Dodoma Region to show people that despite the persistent drought in the region, some crops can still be profitably produced,” said.

Also, Dodoma Region is home to many children who are stunted due to malnutrition. Therefore, our farm also helps to improve the health of the people especially expectant mothers and new-born babies.

“The YWF capital has steadily been increasing, and we have now invested more than Sh500 million in establishing green houses and related infrastructure, including an irrigation farming system.

Secondly, about 67 percent of the youth in the region – and, particularly, college and university graduates – were not gainfully employed. So, YWF is aligning itself with the government, as well as local and international development organisations, including the United Nations, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 as targeted, focusing especially on zero hunger, decent work and all-inclusive economic growth, Mr Mark revealed.

YWF has joined in the efforts of the world’s agricultural stakeholders on getting prepared for current and post-structural changes on food chain systems that might happen as Covid-19 still ravages the world in general.

“We have employed seven people on permanent terms, while several others are on temporary employment terms. In any case, a large number of local communities are benefiting from the YWF project’s value-chain, what with some farmers changing their traditional way of farming by copy from the project,” he said,

Products and markets

The ten-acre YWF farm is located in the Miyuji area, about seven kilometres from Dodoma City.

The project does farming in greenhouses, and also open farming. The goal is to ensure that our consumers get the best farm produce on time, when they need it, he said – noting that tomatoes and cucumbers take about 70 days to grow to maturity ready for harvesting.

YWF’s largest market of tomatoes currently is Pemba Island, flowed by the communities around the farm. The farm produces about 14,000 tonnes of tomatoes – and 2000 pieces of cucumbers per month, he says. Both crops are in large demand by consumers.

“I use social media effectively to promote my products, and communicate with my customers when harvest looms. This platform helps me in securing reliable markets. We have an adequate customer database, and we strive to provide good products and services based on customer needs,” he said.

YWF has also signed a contract with the Yara fertiliser company, thus making it easier to access more domestic markets because the company is well-known countrywide.

Future plans

The organisation has “Agenda 2050” for when the global food demand is projected to increase by 70 percent – thereby equaling twice the amount of additional food that is currently available to consumers.

“We intend to bring together the local community with their expertise and experience, as well as the government and development partners, to create a vibrant national economy. We’ll do this by unveiling the available potentials and creating employment opportunities for youth, as well as creating sustainable business and entrepreneurial development opportunities through investing in the agriculture sector,” Mr Mark says.

He also plans to create an innovative environment for agribusiness aspiring youth to become “agri-preneurs;” to innovate and operate either directly or in collaboration with the organisation’s members; and to formulate agribusiness initiatives that would ensure and enhance the organisation’s sustainability in serving the targeted beneficiaries.

Mr Mark added that he also plans to conduct training programmes in thematic areas of agriculture and entrepreneurship for agribusiness aspirants that are designed to enhance hands-on, practical skills.

YWF has a great potential to contribute to poverty reduction through jobs creation. This is partly because the production techniques it uses are partly labour-intensive – and, as such, many more unemployed Tanzanians, most of whom are youth and women, have the opportunity of being employed, thereby increasing their basic incomes.