By Jacquiline Wahu
Hung Pump Kenya, a company dealing with bamboo and sisal plantations, was founded in 2017 by one Mboya Jacktone Omondi after working for 13 years as a business development specialist.
The company manages plantations on behalf of clients who have idle land but lack skills on how to put it to use. They present a client with an investment opportunity that guarantees returns after 4 years.
Bamboo and sisal plants are harvested after 48 months which makes it a long-term and patience demanding investment.
The beauty of the investment is that the projected lifespan of a bamboo is 4 decades as the founder points out.
“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,” Mboya says.
His company eases the burden of their clients while linking the entrepreneurship gap in agroforestry industry.
The investment requires a minimum of two acres land while the capital required depends on the quality of the land.
Clients do not have to worry about soil sampling and testing analysis, land preparation and planting materials as the company handles all that. More so, they assign a forestry officer to manage the plantation for its entire lifespan immediately after planting.
Just like in any other new venture in Kenya, signing up new customers is quite slow but he understands investors are afraid of being duped which he explains as he has experienced the situation before.
The entrepreneur shares how he has spent a lot of time educating and building trust with consumers before they eventually commit their money to the project.
“I have 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”, Mboya exclaims.
The businessman has so far invested sh5 million in the business which he founded with a capital of Sh2 million from personal savings and terminal benefits from his last employer.
The entrepreneur holds a business administration degree in marketing from the Kenya Methodist University (2014), a diploma in business management from Kenya Institute of Management (2009) and currently pursuing a professional marketing diploma course.
A bamboo flooring factory in four years in Kisumu and a sisal fibre processing factory in Samburu in five years are the next big plans he has for Kenyans.
