Zowasel, Mitsubishi, Honda, and Standage Sign MoU to Facilitate Access to Affordable Agricultural Machinery for Smallholder Farmers in Nigeria
We are happy to announce that we have signed a quadripartite memorandum of understanding with Mitsubishi Corporation (Nigeria), Honda Manufacturing Nigeria, and Standage Inc. to facilitate access to agricultural machinery for smallholder farmers across Nigeria.
The MoU was officially disclosed at the 2022 Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) held on August 27th and 28th in Tunisia. It serves as part of our efforts to increase agricultural productivity, improve the timeliness of operations, cut down on manual labor, and improve living standards for small farmers in Nigeria through global collaboration and value chain development programs.
Mitsubishi would coordinate and facilitate the entire partnership. Honda would provide Honda-made agricultural machinery with technical and maintenance support, while Standage will manage the sourcing and importation of Japanese-used machinery for the project and establish an ecosystem for Japanese-used farm machinery in Nigeria.
Zowasel will be responsible for implementing and executing the machinery rental services through our network of remote Crop Centre infrastructures in Nigeria. We will also provide good agricultural practices (GAP) training and ultimately create market access through our sustainable Marketplace platform.
According to the Managing Director of Mitsubishi Corporation (Nigeria), Mr. Makoto Saito, “the partnership offers an opportunity to Mitsubishi and other Japanese corporations to team up with agricultural technology startups like Zowasel to facilitate access to affordable agricultural machinery for smallholder farmers in Nigeria. Through a sustainable platform like Zowasel, we can directly impact farmers by reducing manual labor and increasing their income and quality of life”.
Zowasel partnered with Mitsubishi in early January 2022 and received agricultural machinery such as harvesters, tractors, planters, and tillers to run a proof of concept of the mechanization rental services in Nigeria.
Nigeria has one of the lowest numbers of tractors per farmer globally. Most farmers are smallholders with low incomes and cannot afford to purchase agricultural machinery or access rental services.
The TICAD agreement offers an opportunity to build on our ongoing machinery rental services across different value chains to improve productivity significantly to food security and the quality of life of smallholder farmers across Nigeria.
