Ekiti State Government has announced a partnership between the State Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and an Agricultural Technology company, Hello Tractor, to seamlessly connect Tractor Service Providers with small holder farmers in Ekiti using inexpensive Internet of Things (IoT) in Fleet management.

The State Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Mr. Ebenezer Boluwade who made this known in Ado Ekiti, said that the State Government adopted agricultural technology or agritech, to produce more with less and make farming process more efficient from field monitoring to food chain.

Describing agrictech as the best option for farmers in the State, Mr. Boluwade said that the technology allows the State Ministry of Agriculture to properly monitor tractor services to farmers in their farmsteads and gives an audit trail to monitor performance.

Boluwade explained that “a GPS, for example, allows Government and tractor owners to monitor the movement of equipment and enables the closest tractors to be located easily for service delivery” adding that “the network of wireless sensors collect data from several nodes placed on the field which is analyzed to draw conclusions on weather patterns, fertility of the soil and crop quality among others”.

“The focus is to increase farmers’ productivity and efficiency through mechanization, improved farm practices, and access to resources. With the platform, monitoring can be done both digitally and manually. This will give the State Government the needed data of farm lands that will be mapped, tractorised, and details of farmers that later enjoyed the subsidy of 50% the state is offering”.

He said that relevant Agric officials would make after service calls to the farmers to ensure that the service provided meets requirements.

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In her remarks, the Country Managing Director of Hello Tractor, Dr. Nneka Enwonwu, said that the new agrictech platform has an app that will allow the extension agents to register farmers who are interested in Tractorization and map their land adding that the platform would also mobilize the Tractor Service Providers located closest to the farmers and matches them to activate the land preparation operations within the allowable period.

Dr. Enwonwu who noted that the State policy on Tractorization is in tandem with the aims of her organization, assured that her organization would soon commence the training of extension agents on how to use the app, and onboarding local tractor service providers will begin through the installation of telematics devices on existing tractors.