Supply, Demand and the Entrepreneur

But when the tomatoes were ripe the price in the local market town was too low to make a profit. Fewer people wanted to buy them (they grew their own) and far more growers brought tomatoes to the marketplace.

In August 2008 Pembo marked out a large patch of sandy earth by the side of the lake, and sowed tomato seeds. As the rainy season was over, he had to water by hand. Every day he spent hours collecting water in a bucket from the lake and watering each plant. He marked his patch out carefully and re-planted each seedling to give it the space to grow.  He tied them, tended them and eventually was able to harvest them and take them to the market. Whereas the villagers’ tomatoes usually fetched $2 per bushel, Pembo’s made $5. As he had done all the work himself, the villagers accepted that he kept all the money: this proved to be just over $100 for two months’ work (about 6 times the average income). He used the $100 to buy a second hand motorbike with a trailer.

Others in the village soon copied the method for growing tomatoes, though Pembo was already onto his next idea. He paid two 12-year-olds to look after his own patch, while he talked to a hotel in the Serengeti National Park about delivering all their fruit and vegetables.