A Farmer's Transformation: From Plow to Power

“I didn’t realize I hadn’t eaten for three days, and I couldn’t sleep at night because the image of the tractor I had set kept coming to my mind.” BuloOlkaba is an EDI trainee.

I was born in 1957 in Amaya Woreda, 45 km from Wolisso, the capital of the southwestern Shewa zone. I, BuloOlkabaKitata, a married man and father of four children, am engaged in agricultural work.

I have a low income, and living through manual labor has made my life very difficult, and I have been forced to live from hand to mouth. The fifty birr I earn daily as a farmer and weeder is not enough to live a better life and meet the needs of his family. Life was generally very difficult for me and my family. Despite all this, I had one thing in mind: Even though I was born poor, I will not die poor.

I recall the incident that changed my life and led him to a better life. One morning, I was working on my farm. An agricultural extension worker came to my farm and said to me, Bulo, do you want to take a training that will change your life? The Entrepreneurship Development Institute, through the SEED program in collaboration with the Oromia Cooperative Bank, has organized a training that will change your life. Without hesitation, I agreed and attended a three-day training for farmers at the Wolisso Hotel. I learned the secrets of success. During the training, the goal-setting part of the training made me realize my potential and set a goal of buying a tractor in the next three years. I didn’t realize I hadn’t eaten for three days, and I couldn’t sleep at night because the image of the tractor that I had set was always in my mind. In general, this experience changed the direction of my life.

After the training, I returned to my village and began to cultivate my land that had not been cultivated for many years. Along with this, I looked into various ways to mobilize money, and now I own a 3 million birr tractor. In addition to using the tractor for my farming, I also rent it out to farmers in my area, earning about one hundred thousand birr a month. This is serving as an additional source of income for me. I understood the power of the training. I am happy, and I am still undergoing other trainings; I shall continue even after I have completed this. The training taught me that everyone has potential; allowing us to look at ourselves, like what I did with myself, has made me evolve. Thanks to the Entrepreneurship Development Institute at this point, my hands have progressed from holding a plow to changing gears, and in the future, they will be operating a combiner.