Hello Tractor, a Nigerian tractor-booking platform, has received $1 million in funding from Heifer International to provide loans for tractor purchases that may be repaid with revenue generated by leasing the tractors to local farmers.
Hello Tractor has launched a monitoring gadget and software that enables farmers and tractor owners to book linked vehicles directly from their phones.
“We created the PAYG program to make tractor ownership – and the consistent revenue these machines can provide – a reality for entrepreneurs who can’t access credit through traditional channels.” “We look at how much money tractor owners can make, not how much collateral they can put up,” said Jehiel Oliver, the company’s founder, and CEO.
Partnering with Heifer “allows us to offer innovative finance to people who were previously labeled ‘unbankable,’ while also providing access to technology that has the potential to improve the earnings of millions of smallholder farmers across Africa,” according to Oliver.
The PAYG approach, according to Adesuwa Ifedi, senior vice president of Heifer International’s Africa Programs, provided finance for businesses who wanted to generate jobs by capitalizing on the need for tractor services on African farms but lacked traditional forms of collateral.
The money will go toward a new initiative called “Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) Tractor Financing for Increased Agricultural Productivity in Nigeria,” which has already helped farmers in the Nigerian states of Nasarrawa, Abuja, and Enugu buy tractors.
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