According to him, he used to engage in farming activities while in school but took a bold decision to quit his optometrist job five years later to focus on farming.
Now the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Sahmen Coconut Resort, Dr. Samuel Hodor Mensah has said he never regretted making such a move to switch career paths.
Speaking on Ghanaian farmer programme, Dr Mensah explained that his company needed a leader to steer the affairs as his coconut company was growing steadily.
His takeover was after the manager of the business at the time had to leave for school.
“While I was schooling, I started farming but it was on a smaller scale but things got better as time went by. After five years of working as an optometrist, I realized I had to stay back because the company has now become big and they actually needed someone who will be there to direct them," he said.
“And one of the reasons why I resigned was I had a manager who needed to go to the university and if he leaves, the place would be empty so I had to sit in and I have never regretted doing that,” he stated.
According to Dr. Samuel Hodor Mensah, after he had quit his work as an optometrist, he started with a pawpaw farm with an amount of GH¢50.00 but later came to the realization that the pawpaw farm was time consuming so he switched to coconut farming.
With the land for farming, he said he went into an agreement with a chief to use his land and every profit he makes from the pawpaw farm, he [chief] gets his share.
“The coconut idea actually came when I failed in my first pawpaw farm. Before I went to the university, I started the pawpaw farm. Most of my friends didn’t like my idea but I still went ahead to do it. Pawpaw is a fruit which requires a lot of attention and time so I had to always travel to the Eastern Region to check on it," he said.
"Then one day, it occurred to me that I had really spent a lot of my time on the pawpaw farm and also got nothing appreciable from it so let me go into a crop that is more resilient and can stand the test of time and coconut just came in mind”.
Dr. Samuel Hodor Mensah divulged that since he began the coconut farm since 2006 till date, he has 162 acres of coconut farm as well as an extra 100 he has started working on.
He has started exporting coconuts to some countries like Spain, North America and Nigeria.
He further shared that, out of the coconut business, he is able to process products like coconut oil, coconut biscuits, coconut chips and coconut tombrown, among others.
Dr. Samuel Hodor Mensah urged everyone not to lose hope but rather focus on their dreams and not to joke with their passion.
He said, “do not lose hope but instead, we should be focused on your dreams and we should never play with our passion. So, if yours is dress making, you should not joke about it. Mine is farming and back days in school, I never won many awards but when I got into farming, the awards are over me so we shouldn’t joke with our passion”.
