YAP proposal #391: A Piggery and Meat Processing Plant (Herve Tuyishime, Rwanda)

 

It is said that when you listen to your fears, you die without knowing that you could have become a great person. It’s a different story for the 30-year-old Herve Tuyishime from Kigali, Rwanda. Three years ago he defied his fears to venture in a business many educated youth would never think of: a piggery and the meat processing industry.

Tuyishime, the managing director and founder of Paniel Meat Processing, says his desire to engage in business was inspired by witnessing what young graduates were going through to get jobs.

“I resolved to start my own business to avoid going through the same experience,” he says, adding that he wanted to do something that wasn’t common. That’s how he ended up as a pig farmer and sausage-maker.

Herve left his job as an accountant at an insurance company to set up his business. He was drawn to self-employment because he wanted to be in control of how much he earned. Not having any business experience,

Herve’s first step was to attend a training course for entrepreneurs organized by the Rwandan Government. Feeling more confident, he then went on to set up a piggery.

Herve decided to go into the meat processing business when he discovered a big gap in the Rwandan market. Noticing there was unmet demand in the market for meat products like sausages and meatballs, he applied for and got a bank loan, which he invested, in meat processing equipment.

Twenty-seven years old Herve Tuyishime was the winner of 2013 REAL Fina Bank Entrepreneurship Award with his business Paniel Meat Processing.

He realized that raising pigs and selling their meat is a business concept with big potential.

“We want to increase and promote local products. We want to show that Rwandese products can compete on the international market”, Herve Tuyishime explains”.

Last year, the Entrepreneurship Award helped Herve grow his business.

I knew such an enterprise would expand quickly given the high rate at which pigs produce,” says Tuyishime, who has a four-hectare pig farm in Gicumbi District, Northern Province. The young entrepreneur started with one piglet, but now has more than 60 and about 100 goats.

Tuyishime says he decided to tap into other opportunities presented by this resource and set up a sausage making plant.

Our Current project

Venture Farm to supply the meat processing plant

We cooperate with Fellow farmers where Paniel Meat Processing (PMP) share with farmers the livestock to every farmers who want to raise the pigs and goats,

We give one pig per person and after raising it and give birth at time of harvest we get one we buy others from the farmers, for both pigs and goats. F

or rabbits we work with students from senior one up to senior three where we assist young people to grew up with the culture of becoming a problem solver and having a desire to become a farmer in earlier age.

PMP will create jobs for a community of 500 peoples in the next two years. Initially we will provide farmers with pigs, goat, sheep and rabbit to senior one up to senior three students in high schools, after giving birth and harvest time

PMP will become the market to farmers where we will buy from them with access to low priced meats, whilst providing the community with access to finance

Challenges

Farmers do not understand making farming as business, do not understand they farm as well and making money, we assisting farmers to understand how they produce for the market and also they can create a market of their livestock while getting access to finance

Future plans
Tuyishime says he will open venture farms for collection of pigs, goats and Rabbits, in more districts where farmers will be able to brought their harvest from fellow farmers and establish more slaughtering house for meat, chicken and fish processing. He also plans to start a rabbit farm and targets to have hit 600 rabbits by the year’s end.

We want to increase and promote local products. I am proud to be Rwandan and I want to show that my community is capable of making high quality products that can be competitive on an international market.

We are planning also to make available medicines and veterinary services to every co farmers where they will have it for credits and pay after selling

We will use this USD 5,000 to open more farms in different locations of the country where every farmers who want to have livestock will be able to get in for free. We have a meat processing plant operating successfully this confirming that we will securing the sustainable market for every farmer who will be in venture.

 

Blogpost and picture submitted by Herve Tuyishime (Rwanda): tuherve[at]gmail.com

The content, structure and grammar are at the discretion of the author only.

 

This post is published as proposal #391 of “YAP” – our “Youth Agripreneur Project”.

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“YAP” is part of the #GCARD3 process, the third Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development.