wcms_436192

PART II |
A MARKET IS WAITING FOR YOU
1. Your business idea
Janet’s experience
Janet has a small farm and her husband works in a nearby mine, but even though both of them have jobs, they
do not earn enough money to pay for their children’s education.
Janet decides to try and start her own business by rearing
chickens to sell. She knows how to do it and her uncle
gives her a loan of $400 to start the business. However,
before she buys the chicks, someone tells her that there
is a huge demand for sunflower oil because of its lack of
availability in the market. Traders are knocking on the
doors of local farmers asking them to produce it. Thinking
she can earn a lot more money from pressing sunflower
seeds for oil, Janet changes her business idea and starts
an oil pressing venture.
Janet has never grown a large quantity of sunflowers.
She spends all the money from the loan to buy seeds, fertilizer and the oil pressing equipment. Since she uses
most of the family farmland to grow sunflowers, there is less land to grow maize and vegetables for the family
to eat.
The chemicals from the fertilizer begin
to make her children sick. She now has
to buy more food for the family. It takes
a lot of time and effort to process the oil,
so, Janet has to employ someone to help
her. A lot of other farmers have started
growing sunflower seeds too. Therefore,
by the time her oil is ready to sell, the
market is already saturated with the good
and Janet cannot find a buyer. To reduce
her losses, Janet has to sell the oil at a very
low price to a local shop. As a result, Janet
makes very little money and she is not
able to pay back the loan.
Alex, would you
buy sunflower
oil from me?
Thank you Janet but
we have a regular
supplier.
PART II | A market is waiting for you | 11