Nigerian Agricultural Technological (Agric-Tech) Company, Tractrac, has launched a platform that enables farmers in remote areas to Find, Hire, and Pay for tractors.
The startup, which uses crowdfunding to finance its tractors, aims to connect 1,000,000 farmers to tractors and hire 10,000 booking & hiring agents within 2 years.
According to Tochukwu Dike, TracTrac’s Communication Manager, the company aims to crowdfund 5600 tractors within the same period across the 36 states of Nigeria and the FCT.
“This platform also enables individuals, independent tractor owners, and tractor vendors to grow their income and optimize their business processes. Tractrac has incorporated payment solutions that ensure optimal security and ease of transaction.
“While farming is local, the technology-powered solution would reach all remote areas. We are onboarding both existing tractor owners and Mechanization Service Providers,” Dike also noted that partnership with Mechanization service providers would help.”
Speaking with Smartpreneurs, Jerry Ebinum, the Chief Technical Officer, says rural farmers will be connected with our techie, well-organized booking and hiring agents who work at the last mile and the farm gate to connect farmers to tractor services.
“Tractrac will be in major African countries and a part of Asia providing the same services to underserved farming communities within the next few years.”
Smallholder farmers earn as low as $2 per day
Smallholder farmers make up 70% of farmers in Nigeria and earn less than $2 per day. According to the UN, food production needs to increase between 26 and 70% however this cannot happen in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa if farmers do not have access to Improved technologies and tools that can facilitate this production hence the need for our application. Nigeria currently has about 5000 and requires about 1.5m tractors, according to the United Nations Food Agency FAO recommendation.
“In line with COVID – 19 safety measures, our platform serves as a solution to meet the needs of smallholder farmers in remote areas across Nigeria. Like all new platforms, we expect some technical glitch, however, farmers have been able to access mechanization services through our platform,” the communication lead noted.
“While developing our platform, we understood the need to incorporate every actor in the mechanization value chain to build an eco-system of quality service providers at all levels to ensure that we meet the needs of farmers”.
“We have partners who have a network of tractors across the country who make it easy for smallholder farmers to access mechanization services. Tractor vendors such as John Deere, Sonalika, Mahindra have added the benefit of making it possible to access brand new tractors at affordable rates with warranty.”
“Tractrac goes beyond the average online service; it creates access to mechanisation for smallholder farmers and also offers institutional funders, investors who have an interest in improving the food security of Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa the opportunity to grow their revenue. At the same time transforming the Agricultural mechanization space in sub-Saharan Africa”.
