Ababacar, TEF Alumni, is promoting Agro-ecology in Africa through FAEDA
In 2017, Ababacar Samb, decided to embark on what will eventually become an impactful entrepreneurship journey with a burning desire to provide sustainable solutions to poverty, youth and women’s unemployment and food, insecurity. This led to him establishing Ferme Agro-ecologique Domou Africa (FAEDA), an agricultural business based in his home country, Senegal.
FAEDA is built on an integrated development model that organically creates dynamic links and synergies between environment, agriculture, industry, and services. It is addressing the lack of adequate access to basic food products through a food distribution activity that offers customers the opportunity to stock up on food products from the comfort of their homes.
A year after starting his business, Ababacar saw an advert for the 2018 Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme applications and decided to give it a shot. He was one of over 1,000 African entrepreneurs who emerged successful in that year.
While speaking on the impact of the Foundation’s 6-week intensive business management training and seed capital of $5,000, Ababacar attributes his a significant amount of his business growth and his approach to entrepreneurship and leadership to the learnings gotten from the training.
“Our company has gone from the start-up stage to the growth stage. In the beginning, we started with broiler production, and we went from 1000 chickens every 45 days to 2500 chickens every 45 days. We have now set up a chick unit with a capacity of 5000 chicks every 30 days. we have also launched the poultry feed production unit. We went from $19,240 to $46,845 a year. The number of jobs created has increased from 3 to 7 permanent jobs” he said.
Owing to Ababacar’s goal at the start of his entrepreneurial journey, he now coaches other young people and women with exciting business ideas, who need guidance on developing their business plan, an important skill that he learned during the TEF Business Management training. In addition, FAEDA also outsources raw materials to various companies in Senegal, thereby promoting the consumption of locally made food items.
In just about 4 years, Ababacar has been able to drastically improve the structure of his business, create a business model that meets the needs of his clients and has strengthened his skills in business management.
