Pineapple Farm

Product: pineapple organic farming.

Pineapple is a fruit which grow easily in the Pwani area near dar es Salaam, capital of Tanzania. The land is being farmed nowadays using traditional non organic farming, using artificial fertilizers which are very expensive and which in long term damage the land. My product will bring profit to the Company and to the local area, by using better the natural resources, protecting the environment, spreading the idea of organic farming and bringing much needed employement to local people.

In order to produce the pineapples I will need the economic access to get more land than the one I have now, agricultural implements and storage buildings for the product and for the production of organic compost, office building and office machinery. Also a packing room area with packing materials. The digging of a deep well will be also necessary in the next future.

I will need an agricultural adviser part time for advice and training and ten workers which will work in the fields. I will do the office management and supervision.

My first target market is the local central market of dar es Salaam, and the local chains of supermarkets. Dar es salaam area is near 4 million hab. My target group is the emerging middle class which can pay a litlle more for a quality product in a good packing, and use the local supermarkets.

The raw materials I need (outside from machinery and other assets) are Pineapple suckers (seedlings), which are available locally from the rural areas, animal manure and compost which will be brought from cowsheds around the area, from my home and later on produced also at our farm.

My product is going to be advertised and sold as organic healthy product, it will be cleaned and profesionally packed. Precontracts with supermarkets will be done after meeting with their managers. The products can be sold with the trademark of teh Company or wholesale sold to the supermarket which can sell it as House product.

At the moment, although there are many small local pineapple farmers, there are no organic pineapple farmers, and practically none use modern business techinques to sell them in local markets. Only few companies using artificial farming methods are exporting to arab countries mainly.

The product price will be affordable for the local emerging middle class, with enough money to spend in healthy products. The product will be enhanced for the customers by the "organic" qualification after being examined by the Health and commerce local authorities.

I believe my product is going to be better than the rest as it is a local product which can compete very well in the local middle class food market in need of quality food and health products, and with the profesionalism of our farming, be very competitive for exportation to outside markets.

There is practically no organic farming of commercial prodcuts like this in the area. The production and procesing of the product, using modern techonologies and organic farming will give it a better position in the local and international food market.

I have a small farm in the area, while I live in Dar es Salaam, few km from the farm. I am cultivating pineapples since last year and long farming experience, using manure and compost in small scale.

As an accountant manager, I have the skills to start the production of a farm as a business, from the managerial point of view. As a farmer, knowing the land, I know I can manage the actual farming with some workers.

I have been employed as an accountant manager, and I have learnt from it the need to be rigourous, disciplined, plan everything, and not to be afraid of invest, but confident in my own success.

It will create local employement, directly for the farm, and indirectly for those which will work bringing manure and organic compost, those which will sell things to the employees which will have money to spend.

It will bring income to the area thorugh the salaries and through the training of the local employees which will use their knowledge to cultivate their own farms.

With the use of organic farming and cheaper technologies, the living standards of everybody involved will be improved, short term, as there will be no use of artificial chemicals, and the personal savings will be bigger. More savings means in that poor are better chance of getting housing, and health, and a better nutrition at a long term.

The employees in short term will be directly trained into organic farming, and local poor farmers invited in two three years to use these methods as a better option to the actual expensive and bad for environment use of chemicals and pesticides.