Habgito champions Tractor Tillers to revolutionize nation’s agricultural sector: In its continuous efforts to provide low-cost techniques and solutions that will advance and improve the agricultural sector and the nation’s economy, Habgito Nigeria Limited has offered Mechanical Tractor Tiller to raise and expand the nation’s agricultural productivity.
Habgito described mechanical tractor tiller as a rotary-powered hoe that makes soil preparation for planting faster, simpler, and less tasking than hand hoeing or employing animal-pulled ploughs.
“Over the years, we have been made to understand that mechanized farming is the solution to an improved farming system because of its effect on operational efficiency, work quality and safety, decreased labour expenses, increase in land productivity and farmer earnings,” Habgito hinted in a press statement.
While noting that mechanised farming is good, the organisation queried to what extent it is needed in Nigeria. Adding, it stated “The main reason Nigerians have easy access to food is because of smallholder farmers. They make up more than 80 per cent of all farmers including medium and large-scale ones (Akinsuyi 2017).
“They are the backbone of Nigeria’s agricultural industry and deserve all the assistance they can get to increase food production, grow more raw materials for the agro-industrial sector, and help close the gap in the nation’s food supply that costs the economy US$10 million in food imports each year.”
However, Habgito decried that the tractor to address this issue is out of reach for these farmers’ budgets. Thus, to cultivate or prepare their farmlands, they rent tractors from large-scale farmers for a set fee.
The organisation continued that people who find this service to be prohibitively pricey turn to manual labour. Hence, many small-scale farmers experience limitations in their ability to run their farms profitably and see a decline in productivity regardless of the potential of the farmland.
“Fully mechanised farming has not been and will not be viable (in the short to mid-term future) in Nigeria due to the high expense of purchasing, operating, and repairing conventional tractors.
Hence Habgito aims to offer inexpensive techniques and solutions that will advance and improve the agricultural sector of the economy through Mechanical Tractor Tiller or Tiller. “Tillers, powered by a motorcycle-sized gasoline or diesel engine, significantly cut down on the time and labour needed for cultivation.”
A Tiller does not need a driver’s license and is considerably simpler to learn to use than a tractor, it is a more affordable alternative to the tractor. It facilitates quick and simple farming field cultivation and preparation.
Buying Tillers rather than tractors in Nigeria will be more advantageous for agricultural development and job creation on a per-capita basis in terms of acquisition costs, running expenses, operating efficiency, productivity, and employment generation.
Habgito Nigeria Limited has been providing tractor tillers to farmers in all regions of the country. For the small-scale farmers, the organisation supplied them with tillers and provided training and after-sales services.
“We have partnered with NACO, SWOFON and PROPCOM-MAKARFI to achieve the aim.
“We have also worked with State Governments (Sokoto and Lagos States) and Federal Governments (through IFAD-sponsored programmes in Taraba, Ogun, Anambra, Benue and Ebonyi States) to ensure the effective execution of our goals.
Farmers that were assisted can now rest easy with cultivating their land because of this.
Our efforts are also geared towards giving customers high quality, dependable and affordable solutions through our tractor.”
Habigto, therefore, hope that collaboration with the government, international and local organizations among other relevant associations and unions will provide and maintain high-quality reasonably priced tillers to Nigerian farmers.
The ultimate objective is to make every citizen self-sufficient. Sufficient and secure in terms of locally produced food, goods and services to boost our economy and foreign income, demand must be matched by the ability to export the same.
Having our representatives around the geopolitical zones of the federation, we hope to improve the nation’s economy optimally. We believe that the problem of Nigeria is the problem of all its citizens and is somewhat of a social responsibility.
Source: Guardian Newspaper
