One agritech is connecting Nigerian farmers to mechanised tools in an incredibly short time. TracTrac, an agricultural technological company launched in 2018, lets farmers in Nigeria find the mechanised and agro-tools needed to farm, with just a few clicks on their smartphones.
Nigeria’s food systems profile by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation revealed that smallholder farmers have difficulty in sustaining their livelihood, and only a quarter of these farmers benefit from financial inclusion. This reveals a major gap that smallholder farmers find difficult to cross: access to credit facilities, which can aid the upscaling of their farms.
While the government has made efforts to improve credit facilities with programmes such as the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme, or the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF), the execution has been weak according to the food profile report.
Mechanisation at your fingertips
TracTrac is contributing to closing this gap through its mobile platform, which connects smallholder farmers to the tools they need easily. The agrotech offers two platforms, TracTrac Plus for farmers and TracTrac Agent for agents, tractor owners, and Mechanisation Service Providers (MSPs). The MSPs, that is, businesses or individuals who offer mechanisation services, can enlist their machinery on the TracTrac agent app and get linked to smallholder farmers in need. The app also allows these agents to track their tractors at every point.
Through the TracTrac Plus mobile app, users can enlist a tractor, hire a tractor, register as a vendor, map/measure their farm, invest in tractors, enlist as tractor operators, and become an agent as well. Through its Invest in Tractor feature, the mobile app also functions as a marketplace to connect farmers who want to purchase a tractor with vendors at what they promise to be ‘competitive prices’. If they choose to enlist their tractors on the TracTrac platform, investors can get a return on their investment anywhere between 24 and 36 months from renting their machine to smallholder farmers.
The agrotech also enables users to measure farms and fields using the GPS walk-around, to calculate farm boundaries and areas, all from their mobile devices.
“TracTrac Plus is about making mechanisation accessible, affordable, and practical for the everyday farmer,” said Godson Ohuruogu, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), TracTrac. “By connecting farmers to tractors in minutes, we are breaking down one of the biggest barriers to productivity in agriculture while creating new opportunities for service providers, investors, and rural youth.”
Turning idle tractors into community wealth
Beyond bridging the gap between agricultural mechanisation and smallholder farmers, TracTrac is also creating work opportunities, such as rural youth jobs within the agricultural ecosystem. In one instance, according to TracTrac, a cooperative of smallholder maize farmers in Nassarawa state faced chronic delays each planting season because tractor owners rarely travelled to their village. After registering on the app, they were able to book mechanised services within minutes, with their assigned Mechanisation Service Provider arriving the next day.
The MSP measured their fields and completed land preparation, while the local agent, a 26-year-old graduate, grew to earn a stable income from managing bookings.
TracTrac is present in three states: Abuja, Kaduna, and Nassarawa. The TracTrac Plus and TracTrac agent mobile apps are currently available to download on the Google Play Store for Android devices.
