Bempong Adom, The Unselfish Businessman At Kwabeng

A Ghanaian businessman Mr. Bempong Adom has not only established a business for profit gain but broadened the definition of his operations for an apprenticeship. The vision that brought him this far birthed the enterprise called Farming Academy located at Kwabeng, Eastern region of Ghana.

Let us walk through the steps taken by this master business tactician. Mr. Bempong Adom does not operate in a vacuum as his compass is directed by authentic information. He spends most of his time reading books and magazines which are storehouses of the experiences of others. As he gets absorbed in the act, he notches up into research.

He is stuck to the green economy where he reckoned several opportunities. A native of Kwabeng himself, he acquired forested land in the Atiwa range from the older generation of his family and began to flesh out his dreams. His initial challenge was the clearance of huge trees on the site which took a rather long period of eight months. Then he decided to build operational structures to pave way for performance. What now exists on the land are housing for some 4,000 poultry birds and structures for agricultural processing. He has formulated poultry feeds from aloe vera, moringa, and bitter leaves. Using a breed that is not excessively reliant on soya, maize, and fish meals, a triad that is highly taxed, expensive and scarce.

 

This businessman went all the way to Uganda to learn the experience of a poultry farmer who rears an exotic chicken called Kuroiler. The breed is a genetic cross between the broiler and the native fowls of India or the specific US state of Arizona.

His other businesses relate to a soursop plantation and processing parts of the plant to flavor tea, and an Aloe Vera-based drink, again with his own farm as the source of raw materials. Both are being piloted, to be commercialized, and his story reveals the capabilities of Ghanaian institutions in helping toward actualization. It is the Centre for Plant Medicine at Akyem Tafo which tested materials and packaged them in tea bags.  Both the tea and the liquid in the bottle drink have their containers and labels designed overseas.

The soursop for instance was a direct tap into the Vietnamese model where information led him to visit for understudying.  In fact, Vietnam itself imported most soursop trees growing there, which are suitable for hot humid tropical areas, similar to Ghana’s. For this reason, they are popularly grown in the Southern Vietnamese provinces, especially the regions around the Mekong Delta, or Central Highlands such as Dak Lak. The exact origin of the soursop plant is unknown, but it is native to the tropical regions of the Americas and the Caribbean where it is widely propagated.

 

Around the compound of the Farming Academy are about 100 coconut trees that are there by design and tied to future plans. Within the compound, are an office, a warehouse, one-bedroom flats for residential workers, a soursop leaves drying room, a storage room, a dressed-poultry refrigeration room, and a yet-to-be-completed hatchery.

 

Committed to philanthropic giving, Mr. Bempong Adom is stretching further to employ a slice of the teeming youth of Ghana which are idling. He believes they will stay positive in society if they are engaged to work and earn a living. Shortly before they weaned themselves off apprenticeship, they would have gained some insight into business and the burning desire to become green economy entrepreneurs.