LiderAccion fellow from Iquitos starts a Rural Consulting Firm

Juan Carlos Silva Lozano is a student from the last year at the Alimentary Industry school in the Universidad Nacional de la Amazonía Peruana (Iquitos). Like other students of his age, he dreamt about having his own business, and now, thanks to the LiderAccion program, he was able to open his own company and become an entrepreneur.

Nowadays a lot of students dream about opening their own business, but only a few make the decision and take the risk towards independent work. This was the case of Juan Carlos, who had been considering the idea of opening his own business during the past 2 years, finally chose the secure path and decided that after graduation he will look for a dependent job.

Fortunately for him, he was selected as one of the LiderAccion fellows that would represent the region of Loreto. After the 5 months of participation in the program, his life had a 180 degree turn and in December he decided to open PROGESA, an Agricultural Consulting Firm with 4 of his classmates.

As he explains to us, during his years as a student he started to think about what to do with his professional life. Juan Carlos quickly identified an important business opportunity related to consultancy services in agricultural issues, because in Iquitos there are no firms or institutions that give this kind of service. Thanks to all the lessons learned in LiderAccion and a S/.15,000 (US$5000) loan from the Regional Government though it’s program “Jóvenes Chamba”, the company started operations in December.

“Even though I had this business idea and I dreamed about carrying it out, honestly I have to confess that I had given up in that idea and just thought about looking for a dependent job after finishing my degree. If it hadn’t been for LiderAccion, I think I would never have given the step of starting my own company. LiderAccion not only gave me the necessary tools to develop my Business Plan thanks to the classes and specially the personal coaching, but they also made me realize that it is possible to be a entrepreneur in our country, take advantage of the opportunities and be successful. The successful story cases were very useful for me as well as the motivational classes that gave me more self confidence”.

PROGESA has two lines of work: On one side, they give agricultural consultancy to farmers that own land but don’t know how or with what product exploit it; and on the other hand they help the farmers access to financing services in order to carry out their projects through Regional Government funds. The firm develops the projects, gives consultancy and the necessary follow up in order to guarantee the success of the farmers.

In the four months of operations, the firm has had sales for over S/.50,000 (US$16,000) and has helped 32 people access to individual or group loans in order to carry out projects of Sacha Inchi (Peruvian seed with high concentration of Omega3), Camu Camu (Peruvian fruit with high concentration of Vitamin C) or Sábalo and Gamitana (local fish species). “Me and my 4 partners travel to rural towns of Iquitos, we contact the farmers communities through the local Governors and present them with our services, making them see all the market opportunities and the potential of their land. The last financing that we were able to achieve was of S/.150,000 (US$50,000) for a farmer community of 15 members that will exploit their land cultivating Sacha Inchi.”.

Juan Carlos wants to expand the firm’s services to other areas such as stockbreeding and pig breeding to make Cecina (typical meat from the jungle of Peru), and reach other markets from the other provinces of the region of Loreto.

“Our midterm goal is to create a fund of our own so that we can be the ones to make the loans directly to the farmers, without having to go to the Regional Government.”.

Juan Carlos’s Rural Consulting Firm will generate important economic development in the Loreto region, helping farmers and rural communities to get loans so that they can generate more income for the utilization of their land. “I learned in LiderAccion that opening a business not only generates a personal benefit but it is also a way of having social responsibility and to generate development for my region and also for my country”.