Business administrator bets on bamboo to grow profit

In 2017, after working as a business development specialist for 13 years, Mboya Jacktone Omondi quit his job to start his own company called Hung Pump Kenya that deals in bamboo and sisal plantations as well as management to bridge an entrepreneurship gap in the agroforestry industry.

“Bamboo is the 21st-century steel — the silver bullet to almost every problem facing us today while sisal is the green gold for arid and semi-arid areas ranging from unemployment, environmental degradation, climate change, depletion of natural resources, health and unsustainable industrial production,” he says.

Hung Pump Kenya manages plantations on behalf of clients. The company offers people with idle land but lack the skills on how to manage it or what to do with it an opportunity to plant bamboo or sisal plants, guaranteeing them a profit after the first harvest in 48 months.

The minimum land it considers is two acres and the capital required depends on the quality of the land.

“We handle the soil sampling and testing analysis, land preparation, planting materials — we supply the seedlings and after planting we assign the client a forestry officer to manage the plantation for its entire lifespan.

“The projected lifespan of a bamboo is 40 years,” says Mboya.

However, the process of signing new customers can be slow and he rightly understands that they have a fear of being conned, a situation he has experienced.

In 2014, he lost about Sh700,000 in savings when he ventured into horticulture farming growing onions, tomatoes, watermelons and arrowroots. Mboya incurred the loss three months after he ventured into horticulture due to mismanagement by his farmhand.

However, in the latest investment, the entrepreneur has spent a lot of time educating and building trust with consumers before they eventually commit their money to the project. He has even partnered with State agencies. So far, Mboya has contracted 104 bamboo farmers who have planted 1,177 acres and another 139 farmers who have planted 2,400 acres of sisal in Migori and Kisumu.

On bamboo production, his biggest challenge is investor scepticism and standardisation of the plant and its products at the policy level.

This, he says, has limited the use of bamboo as a construction material, perfect substitute for natural trees timber, limiting its market.

“I am glad that Kenya is now a member of the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan, which is now coding the products to open the industry.

“But I am not sure we will be ready when the boom hits the region,” says Mboya.

The businessman founded the company with a capital of Sh2 million from personal savings and terminal benefits from his last employer.

So far, he has invested Sh5 million in the business. He has five permanent employees and regularly employs at least 100 casuals to maintain the plantations.

His first job as a business development trainee was with an organisation called Kenya Kountry Business Incubator then founded by Prof Ann Atieno Ndede now the vice-chancellor at the Great Lakes University.

“It was an environment very similar and tailored like what I am doing now. Moreover, at 25 years old, I was already an area sales manager for Old Mutual Life Assurance with jurisdiction all over Nyanza and western Kenya.
“At 31, I was country head of sales and marketing for Fargo Courier and Logistics. This meant that I had been entrusted with great organisational decisions at a young age yet delivered with unquestionable ability and diligence. I was ready for this role 10 years ago,” said Mboya.
He holds a business administration degree in marketing from the Kenya Methodist University where he graduated in 2014 and a diploma in business management from Kenya Institute of Management (2009) and is currently pursuing a professional marketing diploma course.
On his future plans, he wants to set up a bamboo flooring factory in four years in Kisumu and a sisal fibre processing factory in Samburu in five years.

- African Laughter