N80,000 To Millions: Fish Farmer Kenneth Odoemena Shares His Success Story

Kenneth Odoemena, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Catfish Farm Enterprise Ltd, has achieved an extraordinary feat by transforming a modest family-owned plot of land into a thriving multi-million naira fish farming business within just five years.

Odoemena’s journey to success has been characterized by passion, perseverance, and innovative thinking.

His foray into fish farming began in 2017 after completing his undergraduate studies. Armed with a degree in industrial chemistry from Abia State University, he embarked on a quest to explore the world of agriculture.

His initial exposure to fish farming came during an agricultural business seminar, where he discovered the potential of the industry. Intrigued by the idea, Odoemena decided to give it a try.

Starting small with an initial investment of N80,000, he purchased 200 fish to kickstart his venture. Fate intervened when a family friend, who had set up a fish pond on land owned by Kenneth’s family, could not continue the business. Odoemena stepped in to take over, marking the pivotal moment when his journey as a fish farmer truly began.

Although he initially entered the field out of curiosity, Odoemena quickly fell in love with the business.

However, he encountered a significant challenge early on — a lack of knowledge and expertise required to manage a successful fish farm. Determined to overcome this hurdle, he began learning from other experienced farmers and gathering valuable insights.

Recognizing that many others faced a similar knowledge gap, he decided to share his newfound expertise by establishing a YouTube channel for Catfish Farm Enterprise in 2020. Through this platform, he disseminated valuable information about fish farming and how to get started, helping others embark on their farming journeys.

“I started learning and getting more information from other farmers. I was able to solve that challenge at that moment, that was also one of the reasons why I established my YouTube channel in 2020 because I found that some of the farmers were also facing that similar challenge in terms of learning they were asking different questions and were looking for ways to get answers to it,” he told THE WHISTLER.

As his business grew, Kenneth faced the challenge of financing the expansion of his farm. Fish farming is capital-intensive, and securing adequate funds was crucial for scaling up the operation. Financial challenges also included rising feed prices and the removal of subsidies, which increased production costs. Feed costs alone accounted for a significant portion of the overall expenses.

“I faced the challenge of finance. The business is capital intensive. You will require some level of finance to start or to scale up if you want to do it on a commercial scale so finance becomes an issue or a challenge so we are looking for ways to get the finance to scale up the business so that is also a challenge one faces.

“Finance cuts across so many elements like the feed pricing increasing, the removal of subsidy, because it will affect the production costs, will increase, it will also affect the fee cost the fee is like 70 percent of the general cost so once it’s high it increases all the cost of production as a farmer,” he stated.

According to Odoemena, he was subsequently greeted with a huge loss when he first started. He lost 40 percent of his stock before he took a break to attend the mandatory National Youth Service Corp and returned in 2019 to face the business squarely.

“The pond sizes we were using were way below the normal stock we were supposed to use so we were overstocking the pond and the mortality rate was high. Let’s say we stock like 500 and we are losing close to 200 of it before the harvest period so we are losing almost 40 percent of your stock. For example, as at that time the feed price was low let’s take that 500, we should be spending close to N200,000 to feed them.

“So, if you are losing 40 percent of the money, you are losing close to N80,000 to N90,000 of the money that you stocked at that point. So, when you sell you won’t even get your initial invested capital back. So as time went on when the learning came in, we started reducing our mortality rate and at that point, we were taking longer time to get the fish to table size, most time at 8 months the fish hadn’t gotten to table size normally it should have taken you 4 months 5 months but at 8 months they are still there and haven’t gotten to table size so it’s taking us longer time and we are also losing money at those periods.”

Odoemena’s farm has, however, grown big to worth millions a few years after he made his initial investment of N80,000 in his fish pond.

“Presently we have grown very big. Now, I have business partners. But when I started, I invested 200 catfish, then we grew to 500 but now we have grown up to 10000. When it comes to the farm, we work with different partners to help raise the business. For those 10,000 fish, we use up to 3 million to feed them. We achieved all these in a space of 5 years. Presently we don’t only deal with catfish, we also consult and set up farms, so, we have been able to set up to 20 farms within this period.”

Aside from farming, the entrepreneur said he achieved growth through the introduction of technological innovation into his fish farming business.

The business has grown beyond traditional fish farming as he now helps other farmers set up farms and track activities on their farms using technology.

Quoting Odoemena, “I won’t really say the business is in multi-millions because we are still growing gradually but when it comes to consulting, swamp setting, we do it very well. We also have materials like e-books. We have sold not less than 100 copies of our farm e-books. The e-book is N2,000. We also have a farm record sheet for farmers that helps them keep a record of their day-to-day activities done on the farm. We have some clients that we set up farms for that are not built in Nigeria so the record sheet helps to know what and what is happening in that farm.

“In the first half of this year, we have been able to set up three farms. What we charge to set up a farm depends on the capacity of the farm. It could cost up to 550 thousand for a complete setup. On the software, you will first sign up so each client that signed in will just have to connect their email to the Email of their farm manager, as the farm manager is clicking on different records it does the calculation for you to tell you the cost you spent and you at the other end in any part of the world can easily use your phone, tab or laptop to click on the link and you can see the record sheet and everything that is going on in the farm.”

Already, 10 farmers have signed up for the software, and over 40 e-books sold, Kenneth said.

On his future plans, the CEO said the company has about 10 plans aside from what it currently does.

“The major plan is to establish a full consultancy service for fish farmers not just to train and empower but to see ways to bring technology into the business. The plan is to see how Nigerian farmers can produce more here with less expenses,” he said.