Uganda: Hellen Machika earns big from selling seedlings
She was receiving walk-in customers who wanted to start backyard gardening and would time and again want to buy seedlings in small quantities.
By Desire Mbabaali
Monitor
Feb 20, 2021
Excerpt:
“My first order was from someone I knew from my previous workplace. After they learned that I had left, they followed me and wanted tomato seedlings worth Shs1m. I didn’t have a greenhouse so I raised them on my veranda, gave them all the care they needed and it was successful. That start really pushed me in my new business,” she recalls.
From the money, she bought seeds, nursery trays, planting media, built a small makeshift greenhouse at her home in Kasangati, Buyinja Zone and everything else that she needed. From her first order, things only got better with more orders coming in.
“They were small orders but they kept me going and as time went by, the orders increased. I eventually constructed a bigger greenhouse (9X17) and fully launched into commercial seedling raising. I also diversified into consultancy work in people’s farms. I would help them set up nurseries and give them general agricultural knowledge,” Machika explains her journey.
At first, she would only raise seedlings on order because she didn’t want them to overgrow. However, she was receiving walk-in customers who wanted to start backyard gardening and would time and again want to buy seedlings in small quantities.
