Back on the technology hunt

I have been continuing my quest to make farmers’ lives better by sourcing technology that will help them make the best of their land. I have gone from one mechanisms conference to the next, and talked myself hoarse with a variety of companies. Slowly I have been finding answers. 

Mechanism Tour

I spent a great couple of days last week going out to Bida and Wushishi to visit various different farm machinery manufacturers.

One thing I realised on my tractor hunt was that cost was not the issue for some farmers. Sometimes, it was quite simply a lack of awareness of what’s available where. Therefore, I have decided to run a workshop in the next couple of weeks that will introduce farmers to the different manufacturers and give them an idea of who makes what and for what price. 
 

I’ve taken some photos of all of this to give you an idea of the factual reality of ‘native’ built machinery in Nigeria. Much of the steel is recycled from cut up petrol tankers, and metal recycling is something that Nigeria is excellent at. It’s actually illegal to export anything that has been previously imported, as they so desperately want to retain all their current assets.

Quality did vary enormously, for example one of the manufacturers had a 10 by 20 steel container as his office, workshop and store with fabrication done out in the open air. Whereas another had a very good series of workshops, and showed an excellent standard of both mild and stainless steel welding. I got a lot of good information for my workshop next week and I’m hoping at least one community will be keen to buy.

Threshing machines

From my very first meeting with each community, it was made clear to me that the threshing of soya (removing the beans from the crop) is a hated labour intensive activity.

I really want to get the farmers investing in threshing machines. So this is a key focus area for both my tour and workshop. A threshing machine removes the seeds from stalks and husks. When done manually it requires the bashing of soya pods with wooden poles and is painfully hard work.  It is also incredibly time consuming and laborious, massively reducing the volume a farmer can produce. With the 200,000 tonnes needed by Golden Penny firmly in my mind, I can’t not be aware of how much a timesaver could help us. 

From what we saw prices would vary from an entry level machine at N100,000 (£200) up to N1,000,000 (£2000) for a machine that could thresh 100 kg an hour. Sadly none of the manufacturers I visited offered finance schemes though some mentioned discounts for ‘real farmers’.

Some of the passion showed by the managers of these fabrication works was wonderful. When I was trying to argue a discount, one explained that though he could build a thresher for less than N100,000, it wouldn’t last and he was not prepared to put his company name to it - I liked him a lot.

The Golden Penny 

Work is still pushing forward with the Golden Penny project . They were so pleased with the samples we shared from the demonstration plots that they are considering investing in a threshing solution for at least one of the farming communities I am working with. As well as being beneficial to them (they will receive more grain) it is also a positive sign of commitment to the farmers, which will encourage them to engage even more with my training schemes. My fingers are crossed because this will be a massive leap forward in our work.

TOHFAN

You might remember TOHFAN, a fantastic organisation I met during my tractor hunt. They offered our farmers an affordable financial plan that would enable them to share tractors within their communities, many are hoping to sign on in a few months’ time. 

Once again TOHFAN have hit the ball right out of the court. After I told them my plans they gave me a really enthusiastic response and have agreed to provide a threshing machine to Mokwa, Mariga and Rafi at a peppercorn rent. Similar to the tractor deal, they’re offering a three year pay-back period. The cheap price is on the condition that VSO identifies an individual who has the interest and the skill to run a business and could be the thresher service provider for their community. TOHFAN will then train up this individual and teach them how to operate the machine for the best yields and efficiency.  

  Discussions with colleague Ben and Alhaji Danladi Garba the chairman of TOHFAN  

This way three of our communities will have 1000kgs an hour threshing capability for any farmer in their community and we will have potentially created three threshing businesses in Niger state –hopefully Golden Penny will be setting up a fourth.

This solves another gap in the value chain and will definitely help us reach Golden Penny’s soya bean target. Our farmers will now have the confidence and capability to cultivate more of their land which will increase their income over time. 

In the meantime, I look forward to hearing from you, those messages of support never fail to put a smile on my face. 

Cheers, 

Ian