Back in 2021, the world was still reeling from COVID-19. And in the middle of all that, there was me.
I had ventured into chicken production in 2020, through informal rearing of improved Kienyeji chicken. By 2021, it had collapsed before I could even crawl.
Lack of expertise, poor planning, and a market that humbled me fast. A few dubious traders ran their classic urban games on me the kind of hustle that did not start the day I showed up, lol.
The kind of lessons you do not enjoy when they are happening, but later realise they were teaching you something important.
Failure did not kill the passion, though.
Soon after, I relocated to Kilifi County, and I started noticing a real demand gap for poultry products, especially meat and eggs, in the coastal region.
This time, unlike before, I did not just jump in blindly.
I enrolled in an online poultry management program, did research on production and marketing, visited existing farms, spoke to people, learned from producers, and only when I felt more ready did I formalise Afrifama and start again.
Maybe that is why I am careful when building now. Because I know what it means to start with passion but without enough structure.
I also remember my first attempt to launch something similar to the model we are now working on. That was Kukuza and looking back, it came from grappling with that 2021 loss, from realising a lot of farmers were going through the same thing around that time.
Honestly, it was not very clear. Maybe it was not well thought out. Maybe I was not ready. Maybe the business itself was not ready.
I had named it Kukuza, and for a long time, it never really left my office walls. It was just an idea, maybe even a dream, but the belief was there.
At the time, I knew I wanted Afrifama to be more than just a poultry business. I knew I wanted it to be connected to empowerment, to community, to young people, to farmers, and to the poultry value chain.
But sometimes, knowing what you want to build is not the same as knowing how to build it. That part takes time. It takes mistakes. It takes being humbled. It takes trying something and realising the idea is good, but the timing, structure, experience, or capacity is not yet there.
And maybe that is what I appreciate more now. Over time, and especially in recent months, I can see that we have been building toward that first thought. The idea did not die. It just waited for us to grow into it.
It waited for more experience. It waited for a better team. It waited for the feed mill. It waited for the farmers. It waited for the market lessons. It waited for the hard days that taught us what not to ignore.
It waited for the models I am now building at 2:25 a.m., trying to make sure the dream has numbers, structure, and a chance to survive beyond emotion.
And hey, that is something worth celebrating. Not because we have arrived. Not because everything is perfect. But because there are footprints now.
As I said in one of my earlier pieces, this journey is no longer just about me. It is now about us, as a team. And that is something I am incredibly proud of.
And maybe nothing says that more clearly than what just happened.
Recently, we put out a call for applications for a structured partnership for smallholder farmers along the coast. And 205 people applied. Would you believe that? Almost half of them are under 35.
Since then, we have been going through the applications one by one, matching votes, checking some of the basics, and reading the “why I want to join” answers late into the night.
And honestly, reading those answers felt like reading old diary entries of my own people who had been dreaming about this for years, who just needed someone to believe it with them, and a way in.
It waited for the farmers. And now, 205 of them are waiting for us, too.
And maybe that is the real ending to the Kukuza story. It was never a failed idea; it was just early.
It needed Kilifi. It needed the lessons, including the humiliating ones. It needed time and a team to become Afrifama.
The idea waited. And now, finally, it is growing into something that can carry itself and carry all of us with it.