Bernard Wambugu and Peter Ngugi are Kenyans living and working in the United States of America (USA).
The two alongside their families relocated from Kenya some years back after winning the Diversity Immigrant Visa (DV) Program, otherwise known as the Green Card Lottery.
After spending years in the US, they joined hands to establish a sheep and goats farm in Cartersville, Georgia State.
Here is their story as told by WoK.
Background
Wambugu, Ngugi and their wives Josephine and Mary respectively rear sheep and goats on a 2.5-acre piece of land in Cartersville.
In an interview with Chams Media, Ngugi noted that their interest in goat rearing came after his wife interacted with a goat farmer.
“My wife went somewhere and happened to interact with a goat farmer. We had not seen goats here, so she bought it and because we don’t have a place to keep it, we ended up slaughtering it,” he said.
He noted that at some point, his wife started slaughtering the goats and selling them to people within their neighborhood.
“We were inspired and agreed that once we manage to get a land, we will buy some goats and keep them,” Ngugi added.
Mary noted that she made quite some money from selling fresh goat meat and after getting a land together with Josephine, she had just one suggestion.
“I told them before we could do anything else in the farm, we needed to consider rearing goats,” Mary said.
Wambugu on the other hand championed the move, noting that before getting their land, they had challenges with keeping livestock.
“In the past we had challenges with keeping livestock because we had no place to keep them. We are not allowed to keep livestock anywhere
“However, with this space, we have every right to keep livestock because even the government itself knows we are here,” he said.
Mary noted that work is very minimal in the farm. She visits the farm regularly to check on the goats and give them hay incase there is no enough grass.
The team also hires a veterinary officer in case of a disease outbreak or when one livestock is infected with a disease.
According to Ngugi’s daughter, Anne Ngugi, most of their clients are Kenyans, Nigerians and Jamaicans living in Georgia and the surrounding states.
Aside from keeping goats, Wambugu and Ngugi are in the trucking business.
Wambugu who worked in Kenya as a banker at one point worked as a truck driver for milk processing company, Brookside.
He runs King’ori Trucking LLC which he established in June 2013.
“I got my truck, hit the road and I’ve never looked back since then. It’s general freight; I carry goods that don’t require refrigeration and the like. I operate in Georgia and surrounding areas,” Wambugu.
Additionally, King’ori Trucking LLC has a sister company dubbed Rosa King Logistics which was established in 2018.
On the other hand, Ngugi covers different states including Minnesota, Illinois, Kentucky and Wisconsin.
