Africa’s “Uber for Farmers”, Hello Tractor is an Internet-of-Things solution for shared services in agriculture, enabling smallholder farmers to connect with tractor owners via a digital platform and SMS service.107 Founded in Nigeria, the service is now also active in Kenya, Mozambique, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Based on a pay-as-you-use model, farmers can hire affordable equipment inputs to boost agricultural yields, while remote asset tracking and virtual monitoring provide security to tractor owners. Hello Tractor reduces investment costs of farming by turning an unaffordable fixed cost into a variable one, helping to fill the mechanisation gap that characterises much of smallholder agriculture in rural sub-Saharan Africa and lowering the barriers to entry for young people to engage in agriculture.108
The service allows tractor owners and dealers to also benefit through services like demand management, tractor and fleet management and performance monitoring. The company has captured 75 percent of private commercial tractor inflows to Nigeria and supported over 250,000 farmers.109
Hello Tractor has partnered with IBM to pilot an advanced agricultural decision-making and analytics tool to operates across its services. This service utilises IBM blockchain and artificial intelligence: a) provide relevant information to farmers on when to cultivate, what to plant and the appropriate fertiliser to use, as well as predictions regarding crop yields to help develop a credit score for loans; b) help tractor owners optimise operations by forecasting future fleet utilisation and predicting maintenance; c) provide real time information to tractor dealers on repair and servicing needs; d) enable banks and financial institutions to make better-informed credit decisions for farmers and tractor owners based on trusted and forecasted data; e) inform government policy around incentives, regulations and investment prioritisation.110
107 ‘Hello Tractor | Break Ground’. n.d. Hello Tractor. https://hellotractor.com/.
108 Assan Ng’ombe, and Julia Turner. 2019. ‘People, Health and Nature: A Sub-Saharan African Transformation Agenda’. London: Food and Land Use Coalition. https://www.foodandlandusecoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/FOLU-SubSaharanAfrica_EnglishFullReport.pdf.
109 Assan Ng’ombe, and Julia Turner. 2019. ‘People, Health and Nature: A Sub-Saharan African Transformation Agenda’. London: Food and Land Use Coalition. https://www.foodandlandusecoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/FOLU-SubSaharanAfrica_EnglishFullReport.pdf.
110 ‘Hello Tractor | Break Ground’. n.d. Hello Tractor. https://hellotractor.com/.