How A Young Man Moved From South Africa To Established Biggest Fish Farm In Congo

are you trying to say our education system is not good education system is not good because our education system is actually training us to become workers not creators of wealth you know we need to be creating wealth we have everything we got oil we've got food we've got water we've got everything to create wealth no so our education system should shift from creating workers to create wealth makers is the richest country in the world definitely you know that right yeah but the people living here are not rich no they're not rich why is that happening then [Music] thank you how are you all doing welcome back to the YouTube channel it's your favorite village where Mr Ghana baby right here in Congo it seems I'm gonna spend so much time in this beautiful country because you know what I've been telling you that it's time for Africans to make Africa home again it's time for Africans to invest in Africa and it's time for the Youth of Africa to know that agriculture is the future and that is why I'm not giving up on you guys man see how I got here you have no idea you see why I'm carrying this cloth is because mosquitoes are surviving I've been here for two good hours just because of you I mean I don't know what keeps me moving but I feel like it's because of you you know what do me a favor like this video share and uh you know you have to subscribe if you haven't because mosquitoes are biting me I have to sit on Moto to get here you see if I don't die in King Sasa I'll never die anywhere in this world again I'm not even scared anymore you know so as you can see you see punts around me yeah which means that I'm coming to a young man who left South Africa came back to Congo to start a change foreign [Music] young Congolese to venture into agriculture exactly starting a revolution Agricultural Revolution agriculture Revolution yeah I love that the revolution is actually happening it's actually happening let me know when you hear the name Africa what comes into your mind oh the first thing that comes into my mind is home but if I go deeper it's you know Africa is so special because all the four elements come together in Africa water Earth hair and fire comes together and it makes the the beautiful country the beautiful continent the beautiful people with all the resources natural resources that we have that's a beautiful description for the continent Africa yeah I mean let's come to Congo we are in Congo right now yes when you hear the name Congo what comes into your mind little part little part yeah because Congo and go means the leopard oh leopard leopard yeah Leopold the king or leopard animal the animal okay jeez man I was so mad I wanted to slap this dude man like when you hear combo no little part okay yeah because it's actually the real king of the jungle it's the fastest it's the strongest you know that spirits that what ancestor got inspired from and they called Congo Congo is to be like a goat to be like a leopard [Music] thank you my name is songhua diabanza I'm from Congo obviously from from Africa in general and I am I like to think of myself as the the starter of a revolution of the Agricultural Revolution in aquaculture Agriculture and aquaponics so beside that I'm an agriculture engineer as well I did some engineering and agriculture I studied some agriculture engineering yeah you're born and raised in Congo yeah born and raised in the motherland you grew up here I grew up here and then and then I I left Congo in 2014 to go to South Africa to further my studies in agriculture how long did you stay in South Africa I stayed for six years six years in South Africa so you went to South Africa to study what to start agriculture agriculture agriculture grow like listening yeah oh agriculture engineering yeah you know some of us want to be going to abroad to study medical yeah I mean electrical engineer mechanical engineer why would you go into agriculture engineering man because I knew agriculture is the future in Africa you know if you want to be a billionaire don't go into a medical schools and stuff be study agriculture because you know what let's say in Congo in the next 20 years we're going to be 100 million people yeah and we are we have the fastest growing population in Africa in Congo the majority of people have less than 17 years old so these people need to eat they need to feed they need to drink agriculture is the way say I I have to ask you a few questions yeah we're coming from a continent where I mean the youths don't value agriculture yeah we're coming from a continent where when you tell your parent that you want to start a farm they will tell you that is everything wrong with you yeah when you are in school way back in South Africa what were people saying when you want you had um I mean a hobby for agriculture yeah yeah I I got that from not only from Friends people were like making jokes like you know you just you just go study vegetables it's fine for you you know and then um also in my family not my close family but my extended family my uh um aunts and uncle they didn't understand the children like why didn't you go study finances why didn't she become a doctor sorry man the mosquitoes are really biting me foreign you learned a lot you learned so much in South Africa what kind of Legacy did you leave behind in South Africa you know um I I started the agriculture student society which is a student societies the first of its kind in agriculture universities the objective is to bridge the gap between students especially black students and the the professional world you know in order to share experience and actually to bring solutions to the problems that African experience in in food food industry so I wanted the students in agriculture to come together to share experience to be like you know what can we do to get to to fight food insecurity and that's the student Society I I came up with today is still going on but I mean what really inspired that to to start something like that I realized the the contrast in South Africa you know people were involved in agriculture they were not they were like uh they were not African students so mostly Western students that were involved in agriculture their own land their own own Farms you know they have all the resources Financial economic resources but African kids African black South African they didn't have access to those things so they just saw agriculture as just like the third choice when they go to university so what are you doing in DRC right now yeah um actually farming fish farming and training people out to do fish farming you know since September 2020 I trained over 50 people to do fish for me you know and five of them already started the business is an adventure so uh yeah I do fish farming aquaponics farming aquaponics is actually mixing fish farming and agriculture yeah the way in such a way that the the fish waste are used as fertilizer organic fertilizer for plants and I also do Agriculture and farm management so because you know I realized something many people here they just own Farms just for for the fun of it they don't they don't see actually you know you could actually feed a whole population so I'm like you know what give me a farm give me your money I'm gonna make I'm gonna produce food for people and then you can get your money back so I also do farm management I want to know yeah our congoles embracing This Modern Way of farming you know it's um our people are always reluctant to change you have to take them to A Journey For Change actually yeah and uh what are we doing since I've been doing training I see more people getting interested in that and because people actually realize that you you don't have to have a big land to actually do farming you can do farming in an urban setting yeah in a small area but you still have uh the results so people are slowly accepting something yeah and what kind of fishes do you wear in here we wear tilapia and catfish oh yeah how many points do you have now how we have over 60 pounds here of a 60 60 pound yeah over 60 pounds and how many fishes in total oh we produce over 20 tons of fish but yeah bro I I really want to know yeah I mean I'm here to inspire the huge right yeah but sometimes we also have to let the youth know the truth like that's why I want to know how you did it yeah how did you do it where did you get a capital did you just wake up parents who gave you the money to start what you're doing oh you know in South Africa I was working so I got a little bit of savings and also you know I I started actually doing this modern recirculating aquaculture I was still a student yeah so in my student room I started a prototype so it's a small bucket I put fish and I could grow tomatoes so that's the Prototype that may actually made me win the African entrepreneurship award I'm the only Congolese who won that thing in Morocco and he gave me some some extra money as well and that actually helped me to come here and start my business I feel like um you're an inspiration and so many youth have to learn from you uh where can people find you or social media handles emails so that people can learn from you yeah people can find me on that on my website aquaponics and it's the same name with Instagram doing the aquaponics Facebook doing aquaponics but the website they can see all the services that we offer we offer trainings for management uh installation of system yeah and then you can just reach me out then you're gonna get in touch can you do some feeding then I will ask you my next questions yeah definitely let's go foreign this is the fish feed okay it's a mix of Maize and [Music] um house fly larvae you know house flight yeah housefly love is very it has a lot of protein and fish needs a lot of protein to grow fast okay so we leave it open so that we can get egg flies uh giving putting the eggs here and then we're gonna layer it for three days until the eggs hatch and then that's how we fit the fish the fishes are not coming out yeah the fishes are a little bit shy today they're shy yeah especially tilapia they are quite charging can you be hungry and shy at the same time they wait for me to come down oh okay you see that net over there it's called APA that's actually where we put the fingerlings until they get into a certain uh size over 50 grams and people put them in in the ponds and also we have a hatchery like a recirculating Hatchery that use solar power and recirculating water to produce fly whether we can produce a lot of fingerlings actually to to serve all the ponds you produce your own fingerlings in here yeah everything is produced here we produce our own fingerlings we grow them until a certain and the feed and the feed as well we get the the we get the maze we get the mace from outside but then we produce the the house fly larvae that we mix with them and we can that's how we feed them wow the problem with Congolese is it's like the low income they don't get access to good food and that's why we are on the on the nutritionist rate is high so what we're doing is we're producing fish just for the low-income people so we sell them at the lowest cost in the market the lowest price in the market so that we can give them nutritious nutritious food at an affordable rate I feel like this is a way of giving back to the society exactly that's all about it you know when you give back to the community the community rise you up you know it's not about making money it's about giving back helping the people and when you have people that's how you get money and I keep on telling people whenever you're starting anything think about the impact first yeah because when you make impact that's when you're gonna make an income exactly I love that so exciting to be feeding fishes is so therapeutic man come with me let me take you to the hatch [Music] the rain is back we have plenty of water you just direct the water here it makes this thing turn and then we generate electricity right here Welcome to the here we have the concrete pumps this is where we keep our stuff like uh data keeping data but this is where all the magic happens oh okay wow yeah so what did I keep the fishes these are baby fishes you can see fingerlings oh yeah they're over 100 100 000 here 100 000 yeah you know I went to a shrimp farm yeah and I saw something like this you know wow yeah yeah these are the the same Technologies the same water goes here filtration and it goes back it's a recirculating system so well with this actually where we grow up uh catch these fingerlings up to a certain level before we we send them to the pond to the pond yeah I can see this one is getting bigger yeah you have to get out very soon yeah because it's it's up the other one it's on the other one yeah yeah definitely okay so now we're just cleaning the system to have a clear water that will allow us to check out all the dirt and stuff how many people working here here they are two people are operating here yeah but in totally total we have over 12 people all right so what happens is when they get to up to a certain level okay we um sort them out according to sizes and then you send them to the other to support assistant here you sell it it sell them to uh we sort them out into something I sort them out yeah into different sizes you get the bigger ones together the smaller ones together and the middle ones together to reduce the mortality because you know catfish the big ones always eat up the small ones okay so we sold them into sizes then we put them in those uh tanks there okay yeah now I know everything about uh fish farming yeah time to ask you my next questions can we just go out and I'll ask you my next question no problem thank you bruh after moving around in here yeah I just want to tell you that I'm so proud of you thank you you're doing an amazing job right here and I believe that your story will inspire many Africans to also believe that agriculture is the future but I just want to ask this question yeah is it profitable I mean whatever you're doing is a profitable yes it is of course it is it is and we're doing it at the cheapest cost in the market it is profitable and so if it's profitable then I mean it's worth it yes it is worth it it has all is reason to be I wanna ask you yeah yeah starting up this is not that easy I mean we're seeing the end result yeah but definitely there were challenges that you faced coming from South Africa you know the system is not different from whatever that was happening in South Africa in the system in here let me know um some of the challenges that you face when you go in here yeah I think the first challenge was to gather a team of people that actually understand the vision because you know we want highly to live in a poor country so when people find a job their end goal is to make money you know and our end goal was to make a change so uh uh that was the first challenge together a team of people that actually understand the journey and they understand the vision and they're willing to be part of it yeah and afterwards uh it was was it to get equipment you know because most of the equipment you can see here they are imported from the bottom from outside here we can't find we can't Source them locally and uh so there's a challenge of transportation and all of that Logistics yeah and then we we try to to turn the challenges into opportunities and actually to for example for the for the to get a team of people I just had to train every member of the team you know in order to get them to give them the knowledge and actually to so which means you you train your own people yeah I trained my own people Congo is the richest country in the world definitely you know that right yeah but the people living here are not rich no they're not rich why is that happening then because there are so many reasons but when we talk about agriculture we don't produce what we consume and that's actually what we're doing our objective is to produce what we consume we don't produce what we consume we import them we put them from from Europe from wherever and that's what makes us poor because in order to buy something from China you have to have dollars of the Chinese currency you can't buy it with your local currency and that's that's that makes the product create the the cycle the Vicious Cycle where you have to borrow money to import food and then you borrow them at High interest rates and that's how create the whole side the whole cycle so we need to produce what we consume using our local infrastructure infrastructure local Manpower like we're doing here in order to get us uh out of the the pools and North African countries and I also want to say this to add it to what he just said yeah The Narrative of Africa is the richest continent in the world but the people are so poor that narrative needs to change I always say that it has to be this not what yeah we talk a lot without any action yeah it's time for every African out there to get involved because you can't sit somewhere and complain that why are things not moving in Africa but you as an African you are not ready to partake in the chain that we're looking for change that mentality this is why I do such videos I just want to tell every African out there be part of the change that we're looking for on the continent take it as if it's your responsibility my brother we've got so many Africans watching us right now if you have a message for them what would that message be the message will be be the part you want to be be the change that you want to see in the world thank you you want African uh you wanted to you want Africa to change then join us Join the Revolution join the agriculture Revolution join the aquaculture Revolution because we're making an impact with training people you know you know what we're doing is if you tell me if if you ask me a question would I change would I end Hunger in Congo I'll say no because I cannot do this alone thank you this finger cannot wash the whole the whole face we have to come together we have to be umoja you need to we have to come together and actually to make that change together and that's the the message I'm giving to my African Brothers everywhere in the world come join us join this Revolution Let's produce for our own people and when we produce for our own people we can then pretend to be rich that is the the message if you had a chance to change one thing in Africa what will that be that's actually what I'm doing I'm changing the education system I'm training people to know the the new technology how to produce more with a little space how to produce more with at a low cost in order to feed the population are you trying to say our education system is not good our depressing system is not good because our education system is uh actually training us to become workers not creators of wealth you know we need to be creating wealth we have everything we've got oil we've got food we've got water we've got everything to create well no so our education system should shift from creating workers to create wealth makers I I want to tell you all watching this video is that are you guys really ready for this generation because I believe that this generation yeah it's up to something if you're part of this generation get involved and let's make this happen the revolution is happening like I tell you the revolution is all about current guns current knives no it's happening on the ground yeah and I just want to tell you to get involved yeah um I just want to say thank you so much for talking to me and I'll check out your website you all should check out what he does and then yeah I mean check out his Instagram social media handles and go support what he does and if you really want to learn from him reach out to him and let's make it happen yeah the final message anything you want to say thank you very much thank you uh for creating so much impact in Africa inspiring Young Generation because the African population is Young and that's where our focus should be we need to Target these people to inspire them to tell them they can actually change narrative you know if you're born poor it's not your fault but if you die poor that's your fault thank you so much for watching subscribe and be part of this awesome family I'll see you in the next one foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: WODE MAYA

Views: 590,921

Keywords: africa, the beauty of africa, wodemaya, beautiful african cities, african entrepreneurs, african entrepreneurs success stories, african entrepreneurship, young rich african entrepreneurs, business ideas for african entrepreneurs, catfish farming, fish farming, fish farming in nigeria, fish farm, fish farming business, fish tank, small scale fish farm, how to build your fish farm, catfish farming at home, tilapia farming in backyard, tilapia farming, how to start a fish farm

Id: sRYSLdlk9hQ

Length: 22min 8sec (1328 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 03 2022