MS. I SOKNEAT | Client of MicroVest portfolio company, Amret
Please tell us about yourself
In addition to working on my own small paddy farm in Cheung Prey District, Cambodia, I manage an agri-business that offers mechanical tillage and soilfilling services for smallholder farmers in and around the region.
How did you become an agripreneur?
Being an entrepreneur means being creative and having the drive to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves. At the start, I only owned a one-hectare rice plantation, which provided little income to support my family. Despite the difficulties, I saved just enough to purchase a medium-size tractor and seized the opportunity to start a mechanical tillage service in 2018. The business got off to a good start, during which I serviced over 50 hectares of farmland each season, but it slowly declined as competitors emerged. Although the mechanical tillage business might not have been sustainable, it certainly laid the groundwork for my future venture and signaled the start of my success as an entrepreneur. In 2019, I took a business loan from Amret to fund my soil filling business with my initial investment of a medium-sized dump truck. Finding customers was not much of a challenge given the good relationship I had formed with customers from the previous business. It grew faster than I expected, earning me a healthy budget to acquire more equipment.
Today, I own two dump trucks and two tractors along with 10 other dump trucks from private contractors that I use at my disposal. On average, I deliver over 200 cubic meters of soil daily for farmers both in and around my region.
After just three years, I went from being a traditional farmer to one of the leading agripreneurs in my community. My success would not have been possible without proactiveness, discipline, and decisiveness to take on the opportunity when it presented itself.
The client of our portfolio company profiled here is for educational purposes only and may not represent all of the portfolio holdings. It should not be assumed that investments in the company identified and discussed were or will be profitable. The companies profiled were selected based on their financial inclusion and impact with no reference to amount of profits or losses, realized or unrealized.