Nigeria has begun rolling out 2,000 heavy-capacity tractors and more than 9,000 precision implements under the Renewed Hope National Agricultural Mechanisation Programme, in what the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, called the largest mechanisation drive in Africa, according to Punch.
A Service Model, Not a Giveaway
The defining feature is how the machines reach farmers. Rather than distributing tractors to individuals, the programme deploys them through Mechanisation Service Providers under a lease-to-own arrangement, with each tractor expected to serve about 600 hectares a year, the Punch report explained. The Managing Director of the Bank of Agriculture, Ayodeji Sotinrin, said the shared model can benefit over 1.2 million farmers rather than just 2,000 owners, as Tribune Online reported. Four-wheel-drive Belarus tractors have been assigned to the wetter southern states, with two-wheel-drive variants serving the drier north.
Phased Rollout and Financing
The deployment is being phased, beginning with 600 tractors, followed by batches of 750 and 650, after more than 100,000 applications were received for the first phase alone, according to TheCable. The Bank of Agriculture, working with Heifer International, is providing the financing structures, supported by a ₦50 billion catalytic seed fund through the Bank of Industry, while ₦250 billion has been mobilised this wet season to back one million smallholder farmers, the Punch report noted.
Building Local Capacity
Officials say the ambition stretches beyond imported machines, with plans for a domestic tractor assembly plant capable of producing between 2,000 and 4,000 units a year, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.
FoodPrices Nigeria tracks verified retail prices across Lagos markets. Higher mechanised output is meant to lift harvests and ease supply pressure, the chain of events that eventually shows up in what shoppers pay.