Heifer international announces $3.5m additional investment for tractor financing in Africa

An international development organisation, Heifer International, has announced an additional $3.5 million in funding for its tractor financing for Tractor For Africa initiative to speed up the pace of agricultural development on the continent.

This investment came two weeks after the launch of Hello Tractor’s innovative Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) Tractor financing for agri-entrepreneurs in Nigeria with $1 million USD from Heifer International, taking the organisation’s investment in catalytic funding for tractor financing in Africa to $4.5 million USD.

Heifer International’s investments in tractor financing support increased mechanisation of smallholder farmers, promoting increased food security and entrepreneurship across Africa. The investment is being deployed through Heifer International’s Tractors 4 Africa project.

The Senior Vice President of Heifer International Africa, Adesuwa Ifedi explained that the $4.5 million will add additional 75 tractors to the already existing 70 tractors in Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda.

“Last year we invested $1 million that was needed to leverage on Pay-As-You-Go tractor ownership financing model where we provided 70 tractors for Nigeria Uganda and Kenya, this year, we are doing an additional follow up investment as a result of the need and the impact on another initiative we kicked off this year called Tractor for Africa, and we have invested $3.5 million bringing the total investment in tractorisation to $4.5 million.

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“This additional investment will provide 75 additional tractors across the three countries. However the ambition of Tractor for Africa is to be able to provide 50,000 tractors between now and 2030.

“We are beginning to design the innovative financing mechanism that will allow us to trigger additional investment into this space,” she explained.

“Increased mechanization – and tractors in particular –are vital as smallholder farmer’s scale up their production and build profitable and sustainable farming businesses, “said Pierre Ferrari, President and CEO of Heifer International. “We are particularly impressed by Hello Tractor’s Pay-As-You-Go tractor financing model – an innovation that emerged from the AYuTe Africa Challenge, an agritech competition for young entrepreneurs run by Heifer International.”

In 2021, Heifer International created the AYuTe Africa Challenge, which awards cash grants annually to the most promising young agritech innovators across Africa. It also supports Heifer International’s goal of helping more than six million African farmers earn a sustainable living income by 2030. The AYuTe Africa Challenge $1 million USD award enabled Hello Tractor to finance 17 tractors for 17 entrepreneurs in three countries – Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda.

During a stakeholder event held in Abuja on Wednesday, he said he was impressed at the enthusiasm shown by smallholder farmers, booking agents, tractor operators and tractor owners to transform the agricultural landscape in Nigeria and other African countries.

The total Heifer International investment of $4.5 million will provide affordable access to tractor services to 872,250 smallholder farmers at an affordable rate, boosting farm productivity, employment, food security and farmer livelihoods over the next ten years.

The investment will create 6,979 new jobs as booking agents, tractor operators, technicians and tractor owners over 10 years.

“Africa has the lowest number of tractors per farmer globally and as a result, yields per hectare are low,” said Ferrari. “Smallholder farmers do not have access to tractors and that’s something we aim to change. We encourage our partners and the donor community to join Heifer International on this journey.”

Heifer International’s Tractors 4 Africa project aims to deploy 50,000 tractors servicing more than 90 million smallholder farmers across Africa, improving their incomes, while creating more than 500,000 jobs.

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Heifer international announces $3.5m additional investment for tractor financing in Africa