Hasna Mahdi Rasheed: Calf Fattening (Baghdad)
Hasna Mahdi Rasheed has been very committed to the programme and she is one of the participants who is keen to develop her own business. Although she is not an agriculture graduate, she has learnt a lot working in an agriculture office. We asked Hasna why she has chosen this type of business, which is traditionally male dominated, she responded that she would like to break this barrier to entry, and she would be capable to succeed.
Hasna stated that she will rely on experts during the beginning, and she will also upgrade her knowledge in the business. She will continue learning through further courses and learn from experts.
The business environment of the location where she has developed her start-up fits the type of business. Hasna has well balanced personality and she is always frank and tells facts. She updated her BP and pitching documents. The innovation is that Hasna will produce animal feed from local sources which will be cost effective and should be translated to a higher profit margin. She will also utilize the existing local expertise in the first phase of the project with the ultimate objective of having an efficient feed-weight conversion rate and in turn the profit. Hasna will break the barrier of calf fattening as a male-dominated business.
Hasna started her pilot with one calf and plans to expand the project as her expertise builds up. She faced difficulties during the fattening pilot whereby an animal disease started in her region. She decided to sell the calf immaturely to reduce the risk of compete loss. She will continue her project and try again. Hasna received in-kind support.
Hasna about the programme:
“I thank you very much for the program, and I am very grateful to you for participating in this program, as it was an incentive for me to start my small experimental project, which I aspire in the future to develop for the purpose of breaking the barrier that prevents women from establishing such projects related to raising calves for the purpose of supplying the national product with fresh meat, relying on natural feed.
I suggest that you create other similar programs and involve us in them for the purpose of increasing the benefit of information for developing our projects in the future.“
Hasna Mahdi Rasheed was a participant at the Entrepreneurship program for start-up ans MSME Development.
The GIZ “Private Sector Development and Employment Promotion” (PSD) Project is supporting the development and piloting of business models in sectors with a strong potential for new job creation. As part of this workstream, the GIZ PSD project has launched the project “Entrepreneurship program for start-up and MSME Development, innovation and job creation in the agribusiness sector”, implemented by AMBERO Consulting GmbH. This project focused on supporting the development of promising business ideas in the downstream segments of agricultural value chains, particularly in the field of processing, marketing, and service provision.
