Antti Ritvonen, chief executive officer, Dizengoff Nigeria has said that for Nigeria to be at par with global average on mechanisation scale, the country still need to acquire about 750,000tractors.
Ritvonen who stated this during a roundtable discussion with agricultural correspondents in Lagos recently, said that the country is still at the early stage of agricultural mechanisation.
“Nigeria is half on mechanisation scale in African’s and very far from the global average. There is still so much tractors needed in Nigeria and the country need about 750,000 additional tractors to be at par with global farm mechanisation standards,” he said.
The chief executive officer identified small farm sizes and inadequate finance for mechanisation investments in Nigeria, as the two major problems that have continued to slowdown the country’s mechanisation process.
“Most of the farm sizes in the country are small and this can be addressed when farmers come into cooperatives or clusters to create bigger units to make it easier to finance mechanisation. This makes it possible for smallholder farmers get access to tractors.
“Despite governments supporting mechanisation schemes it is still difficult to get affordable finance for mechanisation investments in the country. A good tractor cost about N10 million,” he added.
Nigeria has continue to suffer from low level of agricultural mechanisation and this has continued to limit farmers capacity to expand their cultivation areas, perform timely farming operations and achieve economies of scale in food production.
Available statistics has shown that Nigeria is one of the least mechanised farming countries in the world with the country’s tractor density put at 0.27 hp/ hectare which is far below the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)’s 1.5hp/hectare recommended tractor density.
When measured in 2003, 12 years ago, Nigeria had only 30,000 tractors. African largest economy is currently adding 1,000 new ones each year, which is still not considered sufficient in replacing the aging, worn out, and broken down ones.
This means on a per capita basis, Nigeria ranks 132nd out of the 188 countries worldwide measured by FAO / United Nations in terms of the number of tractors in the country.
Nigeria has fewer tractors than minnow countries like Serbia & Montenegro, with 400,000, Pakistan with 320,000, or Uzbekistan with 170,000 tractors.
Speaking on what Dizengoff is doing to assist the country in addressing its mechanisation challenge; Ritvonen said that the organisation is working closely with other leading service providers in the country to find finance solutions for farmers.
He noted that the organisation is yet to get results from the finance solutions it is seeking for farmers owing to the high demands the financial institutions are making.
“We are yet to get some results on this finance area. Most local commercial banks are talking about agriculture but there is no action. The high demands the banks are making is too high for customers.
“The banks want us to provide a 200 per cent credit guarantee from us and another 200 guarantee from the farmers. The banks do not want to take any risks,” he said.
Josephine Okojie
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