High demand for tractors through Vaya Tractor by large commercial farmers and organizations that do contract farming has surprised the Cassava management team as the service takes off.
“We thought all the demand would come from smallholder farmers, who don’t own tractors. But even large commercial farmers are coming to us enquiring for the service. We are also seeing demand from organizations that run out-grower schemes,“ said Mr Eddie Chibi, the CEO of Cassava Smartech, the company that developed the Vaya Tractor platform.
He said Vaya Tractor was very convenient even for farmers who own their own tractors, because of the advantage it offers when it comes to things like fuel availability and spare parts.
“We can find you a tractor in your area, and you don’t need to think about fuel or transportation of the tractor. That is our problem,” Mr Chibi said.
He added that Vaya Tractor had started to work closely with agricultural inputs companies, because tillage goes together with inputs such as seeds and fertilizers.
“Even banks that fund agriculture really like Vaya Tractor because they are able to tell if a farmer actually planted with the money,” Mr Chibi said.
Meanwhile the Cassava CEO said Vaya and its sister company SASAI were helping people in the Diaspora with a scheme that covers tillage and input costs as a package.
Known as the ‘Diaspora Finance Scheme’, the package makes it easy for someone in the Diaspora to send money home and get full accountability of its usage.
Mr Chibi said the scheme would be fully operational within the next week.
