FAIM Update, December 16, 2011
Written by Steve Jones CEO, FAIM USA LLC
Happy holidays to all of you. I am writing this December update from my home in
Tennessee after having just arrived back on the 14th. While I am home for a month
for R & R, things are being covered in Rwanda with our skilled team members. In
Africa most everything shuts down for the Christmas and New Year holiday
celebrations, so a great time to go home to be with family.
We planted our first batch of plants in the field and potted the balance of the plants
before the end of October, (photo on the left). Six weeks later you can see the growth
both in the greenhouse and the field (last two photos 5 & 6). We are beginning to
move out some of the plants to customers who have paid for the banana plants and
are now planting in their fields. We have collected a small portion of the funds on
orders and between now and the end of January 2012, we expect to collect over
$100,000 in sales and deposits.
In just 6 weeks from small liner to
A healthy field growing plant putting on new growth. This plant will be knee
high in January and full grown producing bananas in October 2012.
The new plant shipments with more bananas, passion fruit, patchouli and
strawberry plants have arrived. All are being potted then grown about 6 weeks in
the greenhouse and then moved out to customers to plant in their fields around [late
January/early March]. We have had meetings with more districts and coops. We
have tentative orders for this next planting season and are awaiting deposit for
bananas, pineapples, passion fruit, Tamarillo, and bamboo plants. We will have a
good handle on what we need to produce for the next season by the end of the first
quarter 2012.
Tentative and potential orders at present:
Bananas, close to 100,000 plants with several small orders from individuals and
coops those are trying us out with sample orders but also contracting future orders.
Currently about 4500 banana plants are sold and 48,000 booked for 2012 plantings.
We are also firming up orders with individuals for another 15,000 we will have in
inventory.
Passion fruit, close to 50,000 plants with individual orders for about 3,000 to 6000
now which could take most of our inventory to booking another 48,000 with
Mironko Industries (private company), and Coop in the western province with the
Nyuamasheke District.
Strawberry plants, we sold 5500 plants to Sina Gerard, a fruit juice processer in
Rwanda. Sina is also purchasing Passion fruit, banana, pineapple, and will be
purchasing Tamarillo once in production.
Tamarillo fruit, 25,000 plants is a very conservative projection as this particular
plant is in very high demand and limited supplies available. We will begin to
propagate this plant following spring.
Pineapple, close to 300,000 plants with current sales at 80,000 two private
individuals booking for spring with good prospects for coop Tuzamurang, Kirehe
district that wants to replace 800 hectares at 40K plants/ha. This will have to be put
on a schedule over several years.
Bamboo, close to 400,000 plants is a rough estimate as this will be mostly
government plantings around lakes and streams. We see this as becoming an
ongoing order from the government for 4 to 500 thousand plants per year.
Pyrethrum, 300,000 plants is the first order we will secure with Soprywa a private
company. The order will increase to an annual order or 1.5 million plants or more
per year.
Our first focus is on filling orders with the plants we have potted and on hand and
then concentrate on potential orders for this next planting season. I will be working
to firm up these orders when I return to Rwanda in January. Aloy’s GASANA, FAIM’S
Director of Operations will continue to work with our potential customers to secure
deposits and book advance customer orders.
The environmental assessment study should be completed in January enough for us
to begin building the facility for the lab. We will install another greenhouse for plant
acclimatization that allows FAIM to import earlier stage plants in from other
qualified labs so as to decrease the transportation per unit costs to FAIM thus
increasing the early stage profit margins for FAIM. These plant orders will be
booked on schedules based on advance sales for the 2012 season.
We will be doing some field plantings, a sampling of all the planting materials. Our
emphasis is to propagate some of the plants from rooted cuttings like the passion
fruit hybrids [not GMO] that are a cross between the disease resistant yellow with
the purple. This hybrid claims to produce twice the production yields of the purple
passion fruit while maintaining the distinctive flavor. FAIM will also introduce a
couple of disease resistant tomato seed varieties that are resistant to bacterial blight
and leaf curl, two disease that are wiping out the tomato production in the region.
This way we may be able to increase our sales figures even before the lab is built.
I wish everyone a safe and wonderful holiday season and a very prosperous New
Year.
Until next time,
Steve