Despite being an internally displaced Person, Peter Kinyanjui boasts of having more than four fish ponds in one of the driest areas in Kenya.
Kinyanjui was given the two and a half piece of acre land in Gilgil by his father in law to hide from post election violence, but instead he saw a business opportunity.
He decided he was going to try his luck in rearing fish, which was not common in his area.
Faced with the problem of getting capital to start his business; he approached the Ministry of Fisheries in Naivasha with only his proposal in mind.
“I went and explained to them that I knew how to rear fish since I had already tried to do so in Kambi ya Moto where I initially lived.” said Mr Kinyanjui.
However, he was asked to bring the initial capital of Ksh20,000 which was required to buy fillets forcing him to go back to his farm to try his luck on raising the capital.
He planted tomatoes since he had carried some small seedlings while fleeing the violence and made his first sale for only Ksh100 which he used to buy more seedlings.
“I planted sukuma wiki and more tomatoes and after more than three months I was able to approach the Ministry with the money needed to buy fillets,” added Mr Kinyanjui.
He however had not dug any pond and the barren and rocky land was not appealing to him either.
His urge drove him to get his wife and ten children to dig the 14 by 30 meter pond which took approximately three months to complete.
Confident that his dream was now becoming a reality, he appealed to the officers to come and analyse the pond, which they dutifully agreed.
“They were so impressed by my effort that they agreed to give me 2,000 fillets to start of my pond. The only catch was that I needed a water-proof paper to put on the floor of the pond,” added Mr Kinyanjui.
With his knowledge in water harvesting, he was able to trap underground water so that they could be used to rear the fish.
He easily got this money from his sales of tomatoes and soon enough he was able to start of his projects.
It was sales from his first fish pond that enabled him to get more money to expand his fishing businesses since he could now be able to purchase feeds for the fish.
From a humble beginning, he now hosts more than 3,000 fishes in every pond and is expecting a bounty harvest soon.
Every pond gains him Ksh100,000 per harvest, money which he has bought a five acre piece of land which he has planted maize and he is in the process of purchasing five more acres.
He also intends to open three more ponds in the area to cater for the huge demand of fish meat in the area.
He is currently building a semi-permanent house.