Tractor Owner & Hiring Facilities Association of Nigeria TOHFAN has stated an alarming observation that only 10 percent of farmers in Nigeria make use of tractors for farming activities.
This statement was made by the chairman of the Association, Alhaji Danladi Garba while address members of the press over the weekend at TOHFAN Headquarters in Zaria, Kaduna state.
Alhaji Garba pointed out that 65 percent of Nigerian farmers make use of hand hoes and cutlasses to carry out their daily farm activities, 25 percent make use of animal draught and only 10 percent make use of tractors for farming.
He also linked this statistic as the major cause of the present food insecurity in Nigeria.
‘’The utilisation of tractors in Nigeria is just very low because. Alarmingly and surprisingly, 65 percent of farmers are using hand hoe and cutlass then 25 percent are using animal draught and only 10 percent are making use of tractors. With these indices, you can see why we suffer food insecurity in Nigeria’’
With the inadequate number of tractors available to farmers in Nigeria, Danladi said was the motivating factor for the creation of TOHFAN in 2003.
He also said that the tractor business is best run by private individuals like TOHFAN because the government can’t manage business but can manage an association.
TOHFAN chairman also further pointed out why government intervention and schemes on tractor provision for smallholder farmers usually fail.
‘’That is just what we (TOHFAN) saw that motivated us in 2003 to say please let’s have a private sector driven system. Government can’t manage business but the government can manage an association, we can manage the value chain.’’
‘’Within no time a brand new tractor which comes into the country under government intervention or scheme within six months you will see the tractor is down and abandoned because they lack the tractor hiring value chain.’’
