Farmers across the nation have said they cannot afford the cost of hiring tractors provided by the federal government. Speaking with our correspondents, they said manual labour had continued to dominate their farming activities despite the federal government’s launch of 2,000 tractors under its agricultural mechanisation programme. Smallholder farmers said the eligibility requirements to own the government tractors place access beyond their financial and operational capacity.
Farmers in Orozo, Karshi, Gidan Mangoro and Mararaba-Loko in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) said they still rely largely on hoes, cutlasses and hired labour to cultivate their farms, while those able to hire tractors paid between N10,000 and N12,000 to prepare a plot of land. They argued that a programme intended to improve food production should make mechanisation services affordable and accessible to smallholder farmers (who contribute above 70 percent of food production in the country) rather than concentrate financing opportunities among large-scale operators.
A maize farmer in Orozo, Adamu Suleiman, said the cost of tractor services often determines how much land he can prepare for planting, particularly when funds are limited. He said, “Sometimes, the money we have cannot cover all the land we want to cultivate. When you pay N10,000 to N12,000 to clear and prepare a plot, you must calculate carefully before deciding how much more land you can farm.
“In my view, that has reduced the volume of food we are supposed to produce and because we can’t afford tractors, we use hoes and cutlasses to cultivate but very little. How far can our manual labour go?” The federal government launched the Renewed Hope Agricultural Mechanisation Programme in June 2025, deploying 2,000 tractors, more than 9,000 agricultural implements, combine harvesters and supporting equipment to expand mechanised farming.
The initiative was designed to reduce drudgery, increase cultivated land, improve productivity and strengthen food and nutrition security. Government projections included cultivating more than 550,000 hectares, producing over two million metric tonnes of staple food and benefiting more than 550,000 farming households. However, farmers questioned whether the programme’s financing and eligibility conditions adequately accommodate those cultivating small plots.
Under the Bank of Agriculture’s Renewed Hope National Agricultural Mechanisation Programme, applicants for tractor must demonstrate access to farmland or service areas of 350 to 500 hectares, provide 10 to 25 per cent equity, submit a viable business plan or cooperative structure, and accept GPS tracking and digital performance reporting. The scheme operates through a pay-as-you-service model, with repayments spread over three to five years and linked to tractor usage and seasonal income.
The 2,000 tractors are also subsidised through BOA’s refinancing arrangement but are not free grants. Failure to make three consecutive payments may lead to repossession. A beans farmer in Karshi, Yakubu Danladi explained that farmers who cannot secure tractor services on time are sometimes forced to delay planting or rely on manual labour, which takes longer and restricts the size of their farms.
“Using a tractor makes land preparation faster, but getting one at the right time is a challenge. If we cannot afford the hiring cost or the tractors are unavailable, we may plant late, and that can affect our harvest,” he said. A female farmer in Gidan Mangoro in the Jikwoyi axis, Rachael Jacob said mechanisation could help women farmers reduce the physical burden of preparing land and enable them to devote more time to planting, weeding and other farm activities.
“Many of us want to cultivate more land, but the cost of hiring tractors is a serious challenge. Government should help smallholder farmers access affordable tractor services so that women can also increase production,” she said. Research published through the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the International Food Policy Research Institute has noted that many Nigerian smallholder farmers cannot afford modern machinery, even with government support.
Limited access to farm power constrains the area they can cultivate and makes effective targeting of mechanisation programmes essential. The farmers called for subsidised tractor-hiring services, community mechanisation centres, accessible financing and support for registered cooperatives, arguing that collective access could help smallholder farmers benefit without individually meeting the scheme’s large-scale land requirements.
They said expanding affordable access to equipment would help them prepare land on time, cultivate larger areas and reduce the labour burden, although improvements in crop yields would also depend on seeds, fertiliser, rainfall and other production conditions. Similarly, another farmer in Maraba Loko, Godwin Joseph said access to tractors could improve productivity by enabling farmers to cultivate larger areas within the planting season, provided they also have access to quality seeds, fertilisers and other essential inputs.
“When we prepare the land on time and plant within the right period, we have a better chance of getting a good harvest. Government should make tractors affordable and ensure that genuine smallholder farmers benefit from its programmes,” he said. A farmer in Owo, Ondo State, Clement Adewuyi, said he relies entirely on hired labour for the cultivation of tomatoes, pepper and cucumber due to his lack of access to mechanised farming equipment.
Adewuyi said he does not use tractors or other machines on his farm, but employs workers annually to carry out farming activities. He said greater access to affordable farm machinery would help farmers reduce their dependence on manual labour and improve agricultural production. In Oyo State, a cross-section of farmers and stakeholders stated that crop production mechanisation among farmers remains largely at a premature or low-to-moderate level, heavily dependent on smallholder scale and selective stage adoption.
The stakeholders in an interview with LEADERSHIP Sunday in Ibadan, said that in areas like Akinyele and the Oyo metropolis, mechanisation was unevenly distributed across different farming stages. A farmer, Adetunji Kilani said mechanisation was high in land clearing and tillage with 23.5 percent to 53.1 percent of farmers using mechanised implements such as tractor-drawn ploughs while the rest still rely on crude manual tools.
He noted that about 72.2 to 80 percent of farmers use traditional hand tools (hoes and cutlasses), while only around 27.8 percent utilise mechanical planters. He added that in weeding and harvesting, mechanisation drops sharply as up to 80 percent or more of farmers perform weeding and harvesting manually. He identified some key factors limiting mechanisation to include small farm size, inadequate capital and high costs, reliance on manual labour and structural constraints.
Speaking on the difference of crop yield, he said using tractors compared to non-use (manual or animal-powered farming) generally increases overall crop yield and farm scale, though heavy or improper use can sometimes cause soil damage that lowers yields. He explained that tractors allow farmers to plow, prepare land, and plant crops within the ideal seasonal window (timeliness), which raises overall yield potential.
Manual methods take much longer, often missing optimal weather or rain conditions. He said tractors-pulled tillage breaks up hard soil, helps roots grow deeper, and improves seed germination uniformity compared to manual broadcasting. Modern tractors with GPS and automated tools place seeds, fertilizers, and water with high accuracy, reducing waste and boosting per-acre outputs.
However, he said heavy tractors and repeated passes compact the soil, reducing its porosity and ability to absorb water and nutrients, which can eventually lower crop yields, while aggressive machinery (like heavy disc plows) can strip topsoil or damage long-term soil structure, hurting productivity over time. The farmer noted that they face several critical encumbrances and bottlenecks in agricultural mechanisation, including land tenure systems and fragmentation, topography and poor rural infrastructure.
He said economic and financial constraints include high capital cost, inaccessible credit and loan facilities and unstable operational expenses. He also identified technical and maintenance deficit including lack of skilled operators, scarcity of spare parts and service centres. The farmers called on the government to establish an enabling environment, institutional funding, and active co-creation instead of fragmented or isolated policies.
They also demanded institutional funding and backing, value’chain approach, co-creation and coordinated policy implementation. Farmers in Kogi State have called for increased government investment in agricultural mechanisation to reduce reliance on manual labour and boost food production across the state. The call followed the deployment of more than 100 tractors by the Kogi State Government last year to support thousands of farmers across the 21 local government areas, alongside the provision of power tillers to promote mechanised farming.
A rice farmer in Geregu, Ajaokuta local government area, Mallam Mamudu Yusuf, told LEADERSHIP Sunday that farmers in the area rely largely on government tractor fleets, small-scale power tillers and private commercial operators to reduce dependence on manual farming tools. Similarly, a maize farmer, Ndanusa Ahmed, said the National Hydroelectric Power Producing Areas Development Commission (N-HYPPADEC) had distributed 50 units of 13-horsepower power tillers to farmer clusters in Lokoja to promote affordable, small-scale mechanisation.
Ahmed said the intervention had significantly improved farmers’ yields over the last two farming seasons, but noted that many farmers in Lokoja and its environs still had limited access to modern agricultural equipment, including tractors and power tillers. He urged the government to expand its mechanisation programme and ensure that more farmers could access the equipment at affordable rates.
The chairman of the Kogi NGOs Network (KONGONET), Hamza Aliyu, called for increased budgetary allocation and funding for the agricultural sector, saying sustained investment was critical to achieving widespread mechanised farming in the state. Aliyu said the reported 10 per cent budgetary release to the agricultural sector was inadequate, stressing that more resources should be committed to mechanisation, access to farm machinery and other inputs if Kogi is to fully harness its agricultural potential.
In Enugu, the state government said it is expanding access to tractors. It was gathered that the state has leased many tractors to farmers at a subsidided amount lower than the commercial rates while the government targets 1,000 tractors Many smallholder farmers in Enugu State told LEADERSHIP Sunday that the arrival of tractors is changing the way farmland is prepared. However, beyond the government’s mechanisation figures, farmers are asking the government to reduce the price for the tractors.
A rice farmer, Mr Obinna Okpara told our correspondent that the tractors have increased the hectares he cultivates. He added that the development has also improved yields, adding that access to the machines is truly affordable and timely. But, another farmer, Mrs Amarachi Moneme said though mechanised farming is better than their usual way of farming, the amount for leasing the tractors is on the high side.
She, therefore appealed to the government to reduce the amount so that all the farmers will afford it. Similarly, farmers in Kwara State said the use of tractors for cultivation has brought about greater increase in their output. They said the state government through the local government areas across the three senatorial districts of the state has made tractors available for hiring at highly subsidised cost.
The farmers, however, want the state government to buy their farm produce which they said are in excess of what consumers can buy. The coordinator of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) in the state, Alh AbdulRahman Babatunde Agbeyangi said the need for the government to buy the farm produce became necessary to avoid loss on the part of the farmers. While acknowledging the support of the state government for the farmers in the provision of tractors at highly subsidised cost and the provision of farm inputs such fertilizer, Agbeyangi called for early supply of the inputs during both the rainy and dry seasons.
On his part, the state chairman of AFAN, Mallam Shuaib Ajibola, appealed to the government to purchase tractors for the association for a maximum effect on their production. He, however, praised the government for subsidising the tractors which are in care of the various local government areas, adding that “we now make bumper harvest across the state.” In Benue State, some farmers said they have never used tractors since they started farming, stressing that they have been using holes and locally made implements to farm.
Speaking with LEADERSHIP Sunday, a farmer in Tyo Mu in Makurdi local government area, Simon Tyover, said he believes the use of tractors by farmers can improve crop yield and productivity. “I know tractor but I have never used it to farm. I used hoes for my farming activities. To me, both the state and federal governments should hire tractors to farmers at subsidised rates during farming season especially for farmers who are into rice, maize, soybeans among other crops,” he said.
A Zaki Biam-based farmer, Dura Terfa, stated that he only saw tractor when he was a boy “I saw tractor when I was young but since I grew up I have never seen a tractor. I don’t farm with tractor. I heard about mechanised farming but here in Ukum local government area, we are into local farming especially yam, rice, groundnuts, soya beans and others.” Another farmer, Dooga Fave, who farms rice at the bank of River Benue said he used tractor only twice.
“I hired a tractor and covered almost two hectares for my rice farm. It was a bumper harvest in those two years but along the line, I had financial challenges and I have not been able to hire tractor again. Like this year, I hire labourers with local hoes to farm for me and I paid them. You can’t compare the use of tractor to farming with local farming implements, the difference is clear.
“Government should encourage farmers to form groups or cooperatives to collect tractors on hire purchase basis to be paying gradually for a long period of time. This will boost mechanised farming across the country,” he said. Mechanized Agric Only In Govt Farms–Farmers Although the Commissioner for Agriculture in Akwa Ibom State, Dr Offiong Offor, has disclosed that the Governor Umo Eno-led government has invested billions of Naira in the agricultural sector, food sufficiency at affordable cost still remains a mirage, checks by LEADERSHIP Weekend have revealed.
Aside the price of garri and beans, which has reduced to a considerable level for the average household, other staple food like quality rice, vegetables, tomatoes and yams still remain high with inflation making them out of reach of the common people. Speaking with our correspondent, Mr Ekpuk Jumbo, a former state chairman of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), criticised what he called politicisation of agriculture policy in the country.
“Government’s implementation of the agriculture policy is so lopsided that only politicians and friends of government remain in charge, while the peasant farmers are isolated from large scale farming,” he stated. “Mechanized agriculture can only be seen in government farms, and this has made food sufficientcy and affordability difficult,” Bassey Ating, a petty farmer in Oron local government area lamented.
Akuku Aniekan Udom, a leader of farmers’ cooperative, noted that “agribusiness is very highly concentrated and managed by government policy in Uyo, State capital, and urged the administration to decentralized the implementation of the policy across the 31 LGAs – “to reach the petty farmers.” “If large scale farming is allowed to evolve to the grassroots with big investment and incentives like tractors, free seedlings and other government – assisted schemes, the crises of hunger and malnutrition will reduce considerably,” Titi Essien, a peasant farmer at Utu Etim Ekpo, headquarters of Etim Ekpo LGA, noted.
In Delta State, apart from insecurity, environmental degradation, exacerbated by climate change, has been identified as a significant challenge to farming, as it reduces the productive capacity of the soil. Despite that it was said the state’s agriculture sector has undergone a significant transformation, driven by formalisation and mechanisation, farmers lament that non-use of tractors has impacted negatively on crop yields.
Despite that the state government passed the Delta State Agriculture and Rural Development Authority (Amendment) Law in 2016 to refocus and strengthen the existing Agricultural Development Programme reforms and boost their relevance, efficiency and effectiveness, mechanisation has remained a challenge. A farmer, Noel Sabastine said agriculture in Delta State should be more than cultivation, despite a thriving investment ecosystem with enormous growth potential.
With 18,050 square kilometres of land, about 6,000 square kilometres of water bodies, and favourable climatic conditions, but he said the opportunities are wasting. “The north of the state features well-drained sandy soil, while the southern coastal area is characterised by water-logged silky soil, both of which should allow for the cultivation of a range of arable crops, but where are the mechanised tools to achieve all these?” he asked.
“Look at the state’s extensive water channels and the rainy season which provide ample opportunities for profitable fish farming, which has become a lucrative agri-business activity but the means are not there too.” A farm group leader, Gloria Onome, suggested that government should enhance the agri-business environment, improve the quality and efficiency of farm inputs, increase the availability of modern farming equipment, provide better access to agriculture loans, and strengthen the linkages between producers and markets.
Sulaiman Ibrahim Auyo, a large-scale rice farmer in Auyo local government of Jigawa State said, they are currently using tractors, combine harvesters, and other new farm implements that have helped them improve their agricultural output. He explained that most of the implements are hired from private business people or other well-to-do farmers, and as such, they are making progress even though they still have a long way to go in achieving total agricultural mechanization.
“You know, using manual or human power for farming is currently not enough to help one achieve commercial farming, so we are begging the government to come in with a practical policy that can transform our agriculture to fully mechanised. “We are aware the Jigawa State Government has procured over 400 tractors with their implements, 70 combine harvesters, hundreds of threshers, planters, and other modern implements that, if released to farmers, will be a game changer in the state’s agricultural sector,” Sulaiman stated.
The director-general of the Jigawa Agricultural Mechanisation Agency, Dr Saifullahi, said the strategy taken by the Governor Namadi-led administration to reposition the state’s agricultural sector includes the establishment of his agency for coordination and policy implementation. The strategy also includes the establishment of the Jigawa Farm Mechanization Service Company and the acquisition of 30 workshops across the 30 constituencies in the 27 local government areas of the state, while 70 young engineers have been trained in China as master tractor technicians, with full expectations for them to take over the centres after returning.
He added that the state government procured 300 tractors and received an additional 100 from the federal government. It also procured 60 combine harvesters, 300 planters, sprayers, threshers, and many other farm implements that will be released to the Mechanisation Service Company centres across the state. Farmers in Jigawa are now very anxious to see the release of the huge number of farm implements that will be a total game changer in the state’s agricultural sector.
In Imo State, the use of mechanisation in agricultural production is predominantly low. This was the submission of Uzoma Prosper, while interacting with LEADERSHIP Sunday. According to him, most of the farmers apply local implements and this has affected them drastically in food production. He stressed that with the crude implements, the act of producing enough food is farfetched and called for assistance from the state government.
Uzoma highlighted that any society eager to feed the populace must transit from crude methodology and embrace modern technology through mechanised farming. Uzoma lamented that it has not been easy with the crude methodology. He urged the government to intervene and make available tractors and introduce mechanized agriculture, so as to increase productivity. In Abia State, majority of farmers, who are mostly small-scale farmers, said mechanised agriculture is almost practically difficult in their communities.
Speaking to LEADERSHIP Weekend in Umuahia , the state capital a private agricultural engineer, James Awa said a lot had to be done to change the narrative. He suggested that, “The discarding of the primitive land ownership systems that have restricted prospective farmers from acquiring land and formation of cooperative societies by farmers to embrace mechanised agriculture.”
Similarly, a cassava farmer in Ikwuano local government area of the state, Basil Ucheonye said the state government has a lot to do to encourage mechanised agriculture. Ucheonye noted that, “Government should go beyond encouraging people to engage in agriculture to providing them land and modern tools which is the most important component to make the system succeed.”
