COVID-19 Africa Watch talks to Folu Okunade, Chief Strategy Officer & Chief Operating Officer, Hello Tractor, about the pandemic’s impacts on small-scale farming and the burgeoning ‘agri-sharing’ economy in Africa.

Key Takeaways

The following are a few of the main takeaways from COVID-19 Africa Watch’s conversation with Folu Okunade, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Operating Officer, Hello Tractor:

One of the challenges faced by African farmers is access to tractors or tractor services. Mechanized tractors can increase the speed of labor by 30 to 40 times, as compared to manual labor.

The COVID-19 pandemic and mitigation policies have impacted the agricultural sector in Kenya by increasing the prices on inputs such as seeds and fertilizers and by restricting the movements of needed laborers. Farmers need better and easier access to inputs, and they need access to finance. And they are worried they don’t have the right kind of partners to help guide them through this period.
One solution to the access to finance issue may be a pay-as-you-go tractor financing model.

In addition to its work to expand access to tractor services, Hello Tractor also employs and offers training products for a group of community-based booking agents, local youth and women who help book tractors on behalf of the farmers, building the necessary economies of scale.
The interview was conducted by Irene Nyambongi, an IFC-Milken Institute Capital Market Scholar from the Central Bank of Kenya. A transcript is available below.

For more on how COVID-19 has impacted farming communities, see our on-the-ground reporting from Joyce Chimbi in Kenya and Abiodun Jamiu in Nigeria.