By Felicia Imohimi
TracTrac Mechanisation Services has unveiled a Mechanisation Investment Facility to support the deployment of 250,000 tractors and strengthen the capacity of 500,000 Mechanisation Service Providers (MSPs).
The facility is also expected to catalyse the establishment of 10 agricultural equipment assembly plants in Nigeria.
The facility was unveiled at the TracTrac Mechanisation Investment Roadshow on Wednesday in Abuja.
Mr Godson Ohuruogu, Chief Executive Officer, TracTrac, said the financing platform was designed to accelerate investment in Nigeria’s agricultural mechanisation ecosystem and expand access to equipment and services over the next five years.
Ohuruogu identified the initiative as a response to the significant machinery gap facing Nigeria’s agricultural sector.
He said Nigeria currently had about seven tractors per 100 sq. km of farmland, compared with 35 in Kenya and a global benchmark of 195.
“With approximately 90 per cent of farming still carried out manually, expanding access to appropriate machinery and sustainable financing remains critical to improving agricultural productivity and strengthening food systems.
“We cannot close Nigeria’s mechanisation gap by treating mechanisation as a development ask.
“We have to build an investable ecosystem around it, one that gives capital providers confidence, enables service providers to grow, and gives young Nigerians the opportunity to build and lead in the sector,” he said.
Ohuruogu said the roadshow followed stakeholder roundtables convened over the past two months and built on the Improving Smallholder Farmers’ Access to Small-Scale Agricultural Mechanisation Services (ISSAM) programme.
According to him, ISSAM is a Mastercard Foundation programme implemented by TracTrac.
He said TracTrac had partnered with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to convene the 2026 National Agricultural Mechanisation Policy Dialogue.
Ohuruogu said the dialogue brought stakeholders together to strengthen Nigeria’s policy and investment framework for agricultural mechanisation.
“The investment roadshow moves this work forward by bringing capital providers and other ecosystem actors to explore practical pathways for financing and scaling mechanisation across Nigeria,” he said.
He said the facility was designed to enable institutions to lend and invest directly in mechanisation businesses and enterprises.
The programme featured banks, government agencies, development finance institutions, foundations, private investors, equipment manufacturers and regulators.
They explored opportunities for strengthening investment in agricultural mechanisation, he said.
Mrs Jemimah Justus, Investment and Asset Management Lead, TracTrac, said the facility would create a pathway to financing that had largely been unavailable through conventional lending in the ecosystem.
She said it was intended to support mechanisation businesses in accessing capital to acquire equipment, expand operations, improve service delivery and contribute to Nigeria’s agricultural equipment value chain.
“The mechanisation investment facility is designed to enable institutions to lend and invest directly in mechanisation businesses and enterprises, rather than pooling capital into a single fund.
“It will leverage TracTrac’s data, digital monitoring systems and risk-sharing mechanisms to provide capital providers with greater visibility into the performance and demand of mechanisation businesses.
“It will also help service providers, cooperatives, equipment owners and agribusinesses access financing.
“Service providers and cooperatives don’t lack demand; they lack access to the right finance,” Justus said. (NAN) www.nannews.ng
Edited by Tosin Kolade
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