Made in Nigeria Tractor "NCAM TRIKE-TOR", Veritable Window for Mechanizing Agriculture in Nigeria

Made in Nigeria Tractor "NCAM TRIKE-TOR", Veritable Window for Mechanizing Agriculture in Nigeria

Nigeria, a "giant of Africa" with vast agricultural land endowed with substantial natural resources that include 68 million hectares of arable land; fresh water resources covering about 12 million hectares and 960 kilometers of coastline. Nigeria has a diverse ecology, which enables the country to produce a wide variety of crops and livestock, forestry and fisheries products. Yet, Nigeria has not been able to produce enough food to meet the demands of its citizenry. Thus, Nigeria resorts to massive food importation on annual basis, for instance Nigeria annually imports an average of 1.8 million metric tons of rice and 200,000 metric tons of soybean among other crops. This ugly trend has to be reversed to place the country on the path of progress, a path that will make Nigeria to produce enough food for home consumptions and exportation. The  cardinal key for reversing the trend is "mechanization" of agriculture in Nigeria.   Agricultural mechanization must be harnessed, controlled and organized for improved agricultural practice. In simple terms Agricultural mechanization is the replacement of human and animal labour by mechanical devices in farming activities. Thus, agricultural mechanization is the process of adopting agricultural machines and technology and substituting human and animal power with machines for agricultural production practices. This leads to higher productivity of farm worker. Besides improving production efficiency, mechanization encourages large scale production and improves the quality of farm produce. In order to fully embrace agricultural mechanization, one of the inputs needed by farmers especially the youths is the tractor and its implements. Use of manual labour is one of the major factors affecting the progress of agriculture in Nigeria as mechanized farming operation encourages the use of farm tractors. Tractor is capable of changing the status of mechanization in Nigeria within a season.

Tractor is the power house for agricultural mechanization and a major indicator for assessing level of agricultural development for a country. FAO recommended 0.2 Hp/ha tractorization density level for developing countries while developed countries have 1.2 Hp/ha indicating high level of agricultural mechanization and productivity, making it possible for one man to produce food for more than 100 people in a given season. Tractor is a very important ingredient in mechanizing agriculture and the number of tractors per giving area shows the level of agricultural mechanization. In this respect, Nigeria is far lagging behind. A study in 2010 revealed that Nigeria had an average of 7 tractors for every 100 square km (10,000 ha) of arable land while 100 and 1,900 tractors per 100 square km were recorded Algeria and South Africa respectively. The result of 2015 Agricultural Performance Survey (APS) conducted by NAERLS and eighteen relevant agencies recorded 928 and 422 government and privately owned functional tractors in Nigeria in the year 2015. The record showed 537 and 77 government and privately owned non-functional tractors out of the total records. Although, these records of tractors are under estimated as many Nigerians are known to be poor in record keeping; "there was dearth of proper records of farm machinery and equipment that impair development planning for enhanced agricultural productivity" quoted from the 2015 APS  report. Why are tractors seem to be inadequate on our arable land?

The major reason for inadequate tractors on Nigerian farms is high initial cost of acquiring a brand new tractor. The average cost of large range tractors (150-200HP) is about N26 million  ($162,500.00), medium range (65-80 HP) is N6.5 million ($40,625.00) and small range tractors N4.0 million ($ 25,000.00). The costs are for the tractors without implements. The average costs of implement in 2015 were N550,000 for harrow, N575,000 for 3 bottom disc plough,  N600,000 for 3 furrow ridger, N1.1 million for 5-ton tipping trailer, N400,000 for 2-bottom disc plough and N400,000 for 2-furrow ridger. These costs are far beyond the affordability of small holder farmers who constitute more than 80 % of the farming population in Nigeria. In addition, other problems associated with conventional tractors for farming operation in Nigeria today are attributed to high cost of maintenance, frequent damage due to improper use, and non-availability of spare parts and specialized technicians for repairs. This is not surprising as the conventional tractors were manufactured from foreign lands with differences in soil, ecology and climate. All these factors make it difficult to have a sustainable tractor environment, especially, considering the high level of poverty experienced in Nigeria today. Due to the economic level of smallholder farmers in Nigeria, there is the need to provide a cost effective alternative to hand tools, animal draft and conventional tractors in transforming the smallholder farmers from their present land holdings of 1 to 2 ha to a large holding status of about 5 to 10 ha. In order to address these myriad problems, National Centre for Agricultural Mechanization (NCAM) worked hard to develop made in Nigeria tractor named "TRIKE-TOR"

The National Centre for Agricultural Mechanization (NCAM) located in Ilorin was established to provide technologies for mechanizing Nigerian agriculture. Among the indigenous technologies developed by this Centre is the trike-tor. The NCAM developed trike-tor is a 3 wheeled and 30 horse power mini-tractor that was developed from the concept of a motorcycle. It was designed to carry out similar duties as that of a conventional tractor but at smaller scale. This makes it ideal for smallholder farmers, thereby, increasing their productivity. The aim of developing the NCAM trike-tor is to solve one of the greatest problem bedeviling the smallholder farmers in Nigeria who needs a cheaper and affordable source of farm power for boosting agricultural productivity. The trike-tor was made from component parts that were sourced, produced, fabricated and locally assembled. This made in Nigeria tractor developed and fabricated by NCAM is the most appropriate intermediate technology Nigerian farmers need in filling up the gap today because: -

i.         The developed trike-tor at NCAM is efficient for operation in terms of work rate, quality of work done, fuel economy and ease of maintenance.

ii.       The developed trike-tor at NCAM can conveniently carry out tillage operations commonly required in Nigeria and is suitable for use in all types of soils found in Nigeria.

iii.      The lightweight of the trike-tor favours its use in Nigerian agriculture as the problem of soil compaction, resulting from the use of bigger tractors, has been taken care of.

iv.      The developed trike-tor at NCAM is affordable and easy to maintain when compared with conventional tractors. The trike-tor can act as a form of transportation when the trailer is attached to it.

The most attractive aspect of trike-tor to farmers is the cost of acquisition. Despite the dwindling value of Naira when compared to US Dollar, the cost of acquiring  trike-tor with three set of  implements (Harrow, Plough and Trailer) is estimated to be N2 million.  

This painstaking breakthrough achieved by NCAM was not done in a day. It is a product of 11 years of continuous research and developmental effort in active collaboration with a private sector.  NCAM collaborated with Bespoke Design Concepts (BDC) Limited, Lagos and developed series of prototypes of the farm bike within this long period of uninterrupted work before coming up finally with the design of NCAM developed trike-tor. The developed prototypes over the years have been tested in ensuring better performance of the farm bike. In the recent field test carried out on NCAM developed trike-tor during ploughing operation, with a two-bottom disc plough, on a sandy loam soil, showed that it recorded a travel reduction (wheel slippage) value of 19.42%, effective field capacity value of 0.2975 ha/h, time of operation value of 3.361 h/ha, field efficiency value of 80.99%, speed of operation value of 5.54 km/h, depth of cut value of 21 cm and width of cut value of 66.31 cm. More importantly, it recorded fuel consumption values of 4.25 l/ha and1.26 l/hr. The matching implements that have so far been developed alongside the trike-tor are two-bottom disc plough, tine cultivator and trailer. The Centre has further plans to develop more matching implements that will make the trike-tor handle more farming operations aside the common farming operations relating to ploughing, harrowing and transportation.

Development of trike-tor has laid a solid foundation for mechanizing agriculture in Nigeria, and indeed African sub-region. To build on this solid foundation, government has to create enabling environment for manufacturing industry to come in.  We need to search for credible manufacturing companies within or outside the country who will take the gauntlet from NCAM and mass produce the trike-tor and implements for easy access to the farmers. Mass production will reduce the unit cost of the machine and implement thereby making the technology available and accessible to small holder farmers.  This intervention will certainly help increase the smallholder farmer’s productivity by 100%. which in turn will increase the nation’s agricultural output. It is my hope that the relevant stakeholders will do the needful.