Heifer International, an international development organization, has announced an additional $3.5 million USD in funding for its tractor financing project in Africa, which aims to accelerate agricultural growth on the continent.
The investment comes two weeks after Heifer International invested $1 million USD in Hello Tractor’s unique Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) Tractor financing for agri-entrepreneurs in Nigeria, bringing the organization’s investment in catalytic funding for tractor financing in Africa to $4.5 million USD.
During President and CEO Pierre Ferrari’s travel to Nigeria to engage with agriculture stakeholders, an announcement was made.
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Heifer International’s tractor financing investments help smallholder farmers enhance their mechanization, enabling increased food security and entrepreneurship across Africa. The funds will be used to support Heifer International’s Tractors 4 Africa project.
“Increased mechanization, particularly tractors, is critical as smallholder farmers scale up production and develop successful and sustainable farming companies,” said Pierre Ferrari, President and CEO of Heifer International.
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“We are particularly intrigued by Hello Tractor’s Pay-As-You-Go tractor financing approach, which originated through Heifer International’s AYuTe Africa Challenge, an agritech competition for young entrepreneurs.”
Heifer International established the AYuTe Africa Challenge in 2021, which provides cash grants to the most promising young agritech innovators in Africa on an annual basis. It also contributes to Heifer International’s goal of assisting over six million African farmers in earning a sustainable living income by 2030. The $1 million USD AYuTe Africa Challenge award enabled Hello Tractor to finance 17 tractors for 17 entrepreneurs in three countries: Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda.
He was delighted by the excitement demonstrated by smallholder farmers, booking agents, tractor operators, and tractor owners to revolutionize the agricultural landscape in Nigeria and other African countries during a stakeholder event conducted in his honor on Wednesday in Abuja.
Heifer International’s new $3.5 million USD investment in its Tractors 4 Africa (T4A) programme will fund an extra 75 tractors in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda.
Over the next ten years, the overall Heifer International investment of $4.5 million USD will provide affordable access to tractor services to 872,250 smallholder farmers, enhancing farm production, employment, food security, and farmer livelihoods. Over the next ten years, the investment will generate 6,979 new jobs as booking agents, tractor operators, technicians, and tractor owners.
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“Africa has the fewest tractors per farmer in the world, and as a result, yields per hectare are low,” Ferrari explained. “We want to change the fact that smallholder farmers do not have access to tractors. We welcome our partners and the donor community to join us on this adventure.”
The Tractors 4 Africa project of Heifer International seeks to deploy 50,000 tractors to service more than 90 million smallholder farmers across Africa, increasing their earnings and creating more than 500,000 employment.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh