Heifer International Announces US$3.5m Financing to Mechanize Africa’s Agriculture Sector

The international development organization Heifer International has announced an additional US$3.5 million in funding for its tractor financing project in Africa, which aims to accelerate agricultural growth on the continent. The investment comes just two weeks after the development organization invested $1 million in Hello Tractor's unique Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) Tractor financing programme for Nigerian agri-entrepreneurs.

Since the beginning of the year, Heifer has invested $4.5 million in catalytic funding for tractor financing in Africa.

It also builds on the funding provided to Hello Tractor during Heifer's inaugural AYuTe Africa Challenge, which saw the "Uber for farming" finance 17 tractors for 17 entrepreneurs in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda previous year.

The overall US$4.5 million is in support of Heifer's Tractors 4 Africa (T4A) programme, which aims to fund an additional 75 tractors in three African countries, providing 872,250 smallholder farmers with affordable access to tractor services, thereby improving farm production, employment, food security, and farmer livelihoods.

"As smallholder farmers scale up production and develop successful and sustainable farming businesses, increased mechanization, particularly tractor use, is critical."

"We are especially intrigued by Hello Tractor's Pay-As-You-Go tractor financing approach, which emerged from Heifer International's AYuTe Africa Challenge, an Agritech competition for young entrepreneurs," said Pierre Ferrari, President and CEO of Heifer International.

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

In the long run, the Tractors 4 Africa project hopes to deploy 50,000 tractors to service Africa's more than 90 million smallholder farmers, creating more than 500,000 jobs.

There are approximately 200 tractors per 100 square kilometres of agricultural land worldwide, but only about 27 in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This is an example of a mechanization deficit that has a significant impact on farm productivity and local economies in a region where smallholder farming provides the majority of income.

Hello Tractor is one of many new Agritech start-ups sprouting up across the continent that see business opportunities in addressing this and other farming challenges.

"Africa has the fewest tractors per farmer in the world, resulting in low yields per hectare." We want to make sure that smallholder farmers have access to tractors. "We invite our partners and the donor community to join us on this journey," Ferrari said.