Segment: 100 Kilowatt Solar Powers My Farm - How I Beat Ghana's High Energy Costs to Build Wealth

He said, okay, I'm going to do my fish,

breed my fish in tanks.

So I'm breeding the fish in tanks under a tanner,

okay, green house, so the workers can go in any time,

they can do whatever they want to work around,

even when it's raining.

So that was the first thing.

And then I said, okay, I need a constant supply

of fingerlings.

So I want to have my own hatchery.

The hatchery is part of it.

But my aim was, I'm going to process this fish

because if I sell the raw fish, I can make some money.

But no, I can't make a lot.

I need to, there are ten should be high.

So I brought in machines to dry the fish and package them.

And that's what we are doing.

Now, to do that, a project like that,

first of all, you have to look for off-takeers

before you start something like that.

But because I was not living in Ghana,

I couldn't do that.

I shouldn't say I couldn't do that.

I didn't do that because I didn't trust people

who were going to do that research for me.

There was nobody to talk to.

You see, the industry is so fragmented.

Everybody does, oh, I'm doing thousand cut fish.

I'm doing 500.

I'm doing five thousand this.

And you see a lot of lies on YouTube.

And people are getting caught thinking, oh,

if I buy thousand cut fish and do this,

and this, I'm going to get this, this, this amount of money.

No.

It's not like that.

And unfortunately, people are falling for such advice.

But what can you do?

It's a broth and people should just tell us the truth.

Yeah.

So I came in and did that.

And I told myself, okay, energy cost is very high.

In Asia, where I worked, I didn't check in South Africa.

But in Japan, electricity for industrial use

is actually cheaper than electricity for us.

Singapore is even cheaper.

Now, when you come to Ghana, it's like that.

So how do you, how do you grow industries

with this higher cost of power?

Well, that's for some people to think about.

So I decided to go solar.

We have 100 kilowatt solar on my farm.

It powers everything.

And then ECG is back up.

I have two generators as backups.

So initially, I wanted to do something called aquaponics.

Where you have fish.

And then the fish, the water from the fish,

the dirty water from the fish

will flow through floating beds.

And then you plant a lettuce

or all those kinds of things on styrofoam

on the floating beds.

Okay.

And then the plants will pick up the nitrates, nitrates,

in the water.

So they filter the water for you.

Of course, the water will also have to go

through another filtration process

before going back to the fish.

But if you do that, you don't use,

you don't waste a lot of water.

You top up the water maybe, maybe every three months.

So yeah, maybe every three months,

you top up the water.

And you can, you can harvest a lot of vegetables.

Unfortunately, I, for me, I made it,

I decided that organisms eat vegetables.

So let me forget about aquaponics.

So I converted everything into tanks.

Now, I'm stuck with a waste water.

What do I do?

EPA will come in.

How do you, how do you dispose of this waste water?

People will just flush the water out into, into gases.

So I said, oh, I can build greenhouses.

So I'll just, I'll just direct the waste water into tanks

and use it to irrigate the greenhouses.

So that's what we are doing right now.

We produce in a red and yellow bell peppers.

We were doing tomatoes, cucumbers,

I bought three greenhouses from SM Punk,

which will be installed very soon.

And then we'll have six.

And then we, I know what, what, what we're going to do.

You just have to optimize my revenue.

So I have to go back to the competency,

which, which products, vegetables we have to grow.

You know, an old friend told me something funny that

a man going on retirement is more concerned

about losing their money than their life.

Now, for you, you've invested a lot of your money into this.

Yes.

That's high risk appetite.

Yeah, at this age, how long am I going to live?

I have a wife.

I have, I have my daughters are there.

Yes, I'm going to get grandchildren.

What am I living behind for them?

What am I using their money for?

So, you know, setting up my archives.

It's a kind of a generational worth creation.

Okay.

So if I'm not around, my wife will not suffer.

My daughters will not suffer.

My grandchildren will not suffer.

The workers will have jobs, jobs, jobs.

What my aim now is to stretch out it very well.

But when I'm not here, this business will be able to,

that's what I'm doing right now.

That's my focus.

To stretch out it well.

When I'm not around, people are going to have jobs.

But was the thought always with you to create something

that will live beyond you when you're working actively?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes. Okay.

So this is, you look at Japan.

Look at Toyota.

Look at Panasonic.

Look at Sony.

Study the history of Sonda.

Honda.

Suzuki.

One guy started it.

It ticked Toyota.

The guy who started Toyota.

His son became the boss of Toyota.

But the stretcher was listed.

His grandson became the boss.

And I'm sure he's, I don't know who is the CEO now.

But there was something around it.

If you look at Suzuki, I think Suzuki,

when I was living in Japan, he was still alive.

Probably he's, maybe he's his father way now.

Honda is gone.

But you see what they did.

The family has interest.

But because the stretcher is there, the company survives.

How many companies?

You can mention a lot of Ganyan set up the great companies.

Some of my wife is from a group home.

A lot of people from a group of set up companies.

Yeah, in Ghana.

Now, when they passed away, where are the companies?

Because maybe the stretcher wasn't great.

I'm just speculating.

Maybe the stretcher wasn't great.

So when he passed on, he passed away.

Somebody took over and said, I'm not going to do this.

And gone.

The company is gone.

Workers are in trouble.

They don't have jobs.

They need to find jobs somewhere else.

Mr. Bachidanko, when we talk about this stretcher,

what do we mean by that?

Hmm.

Let me stop you here for a minute.

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Now let's get back to the conversation.

So stretcher.

OK.

Say, say management.

Who controls the company?

OK.

Is it a one-man show that if I'm not here,

Mr. S cannot do it.

We need to move away from this one-man show thing.

Because knowledge, wisdom, doesn't reside in only one person.

You put together, there's even automatic eye firms

we meet.

I meet the workers and we talk.

Hey, what should we do?

Don't be shy.

Just tell me what we should do.

Sometimes they don't want to talk.

I call them one by one to my office.

And they give me wonderful ideas.

These are not graduates.

These are junior high school from the village.

I said, yeah, OK.

Because it's basically selling.

And selling is not rocket science.

You don't have to have a university degree to sell.

The raw machine behind the business is more than selling.

It's more than selling.

You need it.

Yes.

Beyond.

Yeah.

I have two graduates with me there.

So you need to have, OK, who is managing the business?

What is the vision?

The vision is clearly sold to them.

They buy into the vision.

This is where we want to go.

This is what I want Moodikai firms to be.

When somebody comes here and insults you, don't respond.

Don't get upset.

Just say, yes, ma'am.

Yes, dad.

Let them go.

And come and complain to me later.

People should learn ethics.

They should know where the company is going.

They should know what you stand for.

They should know why you are.

They are doing what they are doing right now.

Are they just working for money?

But you have to let them feel that, OK, I'm not only working for money.

Is that enough to keep a business for more than three generations?

That is not enough.

You need to have results.

If you have all those and then you're not making money.

What if they say that they are not interested in the business that you do?

As young people are growing up, there are new ideas that are coming.

There are better ways of making money, faster ways of making money.

And, you know, different types.

So they may say, I don't want to be in the firms.

You know, I want to trade.

Sure.

No, no.

They can't do that.

But you let them go and bring on new people who will buy into your idea.

Connected minds, podcast.