It’s not official, official in the sense that Uber is only used as a comparison here, but there’s a platform in Africa that’s mimicking Uber’s benefits, but for farmers. Here is the scoop.
Smallholder farming, a bread-and-butter for Africa
Smallholders are crucial to the production of food in Africa. Smallholder farming is an agricultural practice wherein individuals or families cultivate tiny plots of land, usually depending on their own labor and resources.
Such farms that this type of farming caters to are denoted by their limited sizing, often serving as a source of food for household consumption and income via market sales.
Statistics show that around 33 million smallholder farmers account for around 80 percent of food production in sub-Saharan Africa. This is crucial for a continent that’s often embattled by hunger.
However, there lies a problem. While sub-Saharan Africa accounts for a quarter of the world’s farmable lands, it only contributes to approximately 10 percent of the worldwide agricultural output.
Thus, Africa’s farmers are lagging behind, considering other countries spend up to a whopping $35 billion on food imports yearly.
That said, Hello Tractor comes into the scene.
Hello, Africa – Hello Tractor
Hence, Hello Tractor was born. This Kenyan agricultural technology company generally works like Uber. It is committed to mechanizing farming for smallholder farmers not only in the country, but across Africa.
Just like ridesharing apps, Hello Tractor features an on-demand tractor-hailing model that farmers can use.
In other words, they can hail tractors via the platform.
This business model is rooted in the realization that tractor owners have the equipment to make farming a whole lot easier.
“One thing we noticed is 65 percent of Africa’s arable land remains underutilised, and there are a combination of challenges, like a lack of mechanisation services to the farmers and also a lack of equipment for those farmers to get access to mechanisation services,” Rispa Miliza, Hello Tractor’s Digital Sales Lead, told the Ridesharing Forum team.
Middleman
Therefore, Hello Tractor is also a middleman. Yes, there’s an app to book tractors, plus booking agents in rural areas where booking tractors may be difficult due to Internet connectivity restraints.
“The idea was to ensure that smallholder farmers get as productive as possible using the agricultural lands and also that we scale that up to achieve global food security,” Miliza added.
The strategy of using booking agents also reduces the friction that less educated farmers encounter when navigating the complexities of apps and websites.
So, the booking agents serve on behalf of the farmers, helping them fill out details like location, farm size, and service date so that they can connect to the nearest available tractor.
“If a farmer is not aware of a booking agent within their location, we have what we call mechanisation hubs that they can also walk into and book for the services they require,” Miliza further said.
How to use Hello Tractor
Farmers can request tractor services in two ways: directly contacting the Hello Tractor customer support lines or through the agents.
“However, to make it more sustainable and scalable, we work closely with booking agents. Booking agents are individuals who come from farmer communities,” stated Miliza.