By Ginika Okoye
Abuja – The Federal Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with John Deere Tractor Manufacturing Company to procure tractors and render farm mechanisation services to smallholder farmers across the country.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, in his address at the event Abuja on Thursday, said that the deal would boost food production in the country and attract more youths into agriculture.
Ogbeh said that inadequate farm mechanisation had been a major challenge facing food production in Nigeria, adding that the country would need about one million tractors to engage in sustainable food production in the next 15 to 20 years.
The minister said that the partnership with John Deere on the tractor distribution and services was a component of the Agriculture Inputs and Mechanisation Services (AIMS), the newly introduced agricultural programme of the Federal Government.
He said that the partnership would relieve the government of the burden of tractor procurement and management, while promoting improved efficiency, accountability and service delivery in tractor services.
He said that the Federal Government would contribute 35 per cent of the total cost of the tractors, while the private sector and farmers were expected to defray the remaining cost.
“We will only contribute 35 per cent of the money and the private sector brings the balance.
“We will then hand over the tractors to professional managers like Tractor Owners and Operators Association of Nigeria (TOOAN) and Tractor Owners and Hiring Facilities Association of Nigeria (TOHFAN).
“The associations will rent out the tractors to farmers, they will return our money, make some profits and give to the farmers the services that ordinarily, they won’t have.
“Before now, what we were doing was buying tractors and giving people to sell at half price but the tractors always ended up in the hands of traditional rulers and politicians; the tractors were never used.
“The private sector has invented a means of monitoring the tractors; so, they are more efficient and the tractors would last longer for a period of 15 years but in the hands of government, tractors never lasted more than three years.
“Each year, we spend millions of naira buying tractors but we don’t get tractor services and adequate food production; we have, therefore, invented a solution to the challenge of mechanisation,’’ he said.
Mr Jason Bentley, the Managing Director of John Deere and Namel Equipment Leasing Company, said the partnership was to enable smallholder farmers to get good farm mechanisation services across the country for a period of five years.
He said that the company would train technicians who would handle the machines and monitor the tracking systems installed for the machines.
Besides, Bentley said that plans were underway by the company to establish a tractor assembling plant in the country to train more technicians and employ youths in the country.
“Everyone doesn’t need to own a tractor but everyone needs access to technology and solutions to enable them to improve their yields and make more money.
“We are here to offer a SMART solution for Nigerian farmers that focuses on access to finance, we are going to be able to offer financing of 10 per cent of the funding project,’’ he said.
Mr Ahmed Adekunle, the Senior Technical Adviser to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development on Mechanisation, said that the supply of the 10,000 tractors in the partnership would be driven by demand from farmers.
He said that the ministry would go into partnership with different farmers associations, including Rice Farmers Association (RIFAN), Cassava Growers Association of Nigeria, among others, to procure the tractors for use by their members.
“We are going to open lands and the more lands we open, the more tractors we bring in.
“This programme is meant for the youths and in every 1,000 hectare of land we open and develop, we are going to give the land to the youths at the rate of three to four hectares each,’’ he said.
Mr Chidi Izuwah, the Acting Director of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), said that the public-private partnership was crucial to the agricultural development of the country.
According to him, without farm mechanisation, efforts to achieve food security will be futile.
“There will be a farm mechanisation centre where farmers can go and hire or lease tractors for their use; so, they don’t need to own tractors.
“The tractors will improve the ability of our farmers to till and improve farm preparations on their farms.
“The project is technologically driven and it will attract young people into agriculture,’’ Izuwah said.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports John Deere is the brand name of Deere & Company, an American corporation that manufactures agricultural, construction, and forestry machinery, among others.
(NAN)
