By Matthew Denis Abuja
In a bid to boost Farming mechanisation and ensure foods safety and availability, leading companies — Heifer International in partnership with hello tractor have given out 12 tractors as soft loans to smallholder farmers.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Nigeria has approximately 74.5 million hectares of available Agricultural land which about half is currently being utilised. Also Agriculture accounted for about 30 percent of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product in 2021
Speaking during a Media briefing Pay as You Go event Christened ‘Tractor Financing for increased Agricultural productivity and Income for smallholder farmers,’ the Senior Vice President Africa Programs Heifer International, Mrs. Adesuwa Ifedi said “Heifer International started work in Nigeria in 2020, investing in the creativity of young Nigerians and new technologies to unlock opportunities within the Agricultural sector for sustainable living incomes, food Security, improved livelihoods and resilience.”
“The company aims to assist more than 1million households in Nigeria largely young men and women reach a sustainable living income by 2030 through Strategic Private and public sector partnerships, unlocking demand and market opportunities, investing in priority value chains and leveraging innovation and emerging Agricultural technologies to reach transformational scale.”
Mrs. Ifedi stated, “We passionate about farmers who has been working tirelessly to put food on our table and we have a slogan titled ‘the future is Farmers.” We’re more dispersed by the fact that young people don’t want to farm we believe there’s an obstacle on their way, which is technology and mechanisation.
“If we can remove the obstacles farming will be a career for the future. We have done this in the continent for about four decades, we believe financing is the language for the smallholder farmers especially in the rural communities.
The Vice President explained that the tractor financing model is an innovation to support smallholder mechanisation, food Security and rural enterprenureship in Nigeria.
“This great initiatives is being facilitated by our partner hello tractor who is the initiator of the initiative and what we done in heifer is to provide and derisk Innovative financing to enable them test out this model to encourage participants from Government and private sectors.
“Since 1944 Heifer has worked with more than 39million smallholder farmers to end hunger and poverty in the world. Once we can enable their ability to feed us better we also reducing their poverty level, transforms their own pockets and living standard as well.
“Our Strategic goal in the next 10years is to assist one million farmers mostly young men and women in Africa to be able to get food on our table. We intend to do this by enabling them to have a dignify jobs in Agriculture to their offspring.”
Mrs. Ifedi noted that with more than 75 years of investing and technically contributing to Agricultural formation programes globally, Heifer International is repositioning work in Africa to include innovative investment in infrastructures and supporting young entrepreneurs.
She revealed that they have program accross 22 states in Nigeria with value chains on rice poultry, tomatoes with thousands of Nigerians as beneficiaries.
Also Speaking, the Chief Executive Officer of Helo Tractor, Jehiel Oliver said they are estimating $25 millions for smallholder farmers in Nigeria and expecting banks to fill in the gap.
He stressed that Helo Tractor is bridging the Gap to ensure smallholder farmers have access to tractors to increase their farming activities in Africa.
Mr. Oliver noted that millions of farmers have benefited from their programes across the Africa continent for some years.
The highlights of the Programme was launching of Five tractors and giving out to beneficiaries by hello tractor in addition to the seven distributed some weeks ago making them 12 tractors to farmers for instalmental payment in enhancing their productivity.
[4/28, 7:19 PM] Denis Matthew Ilorin Applicant, Heifer International Senior Vice President Africa Programs Heifer International, Mrs. Adesuwa Ifedi (4th right), Director of Agriculture Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Minerals Resources, Alhaji Abdullahi Admin cutting the tape during the launching of five hello tractors to smallholder farmers in Abuja on Thursday