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Nigeria Signs $22m Deal To Buy Tractors, Woo Back Youth

Nigeria Signs $22m Deal To Buy Tractors, Woo Back Youth

From Ventures Africa.

Nigeria’s Ministry of Agriculture and the Bank of Agriculture have signed a $22 million  financing agreement to buy 400 tractors in the hopes it will reduce the stress of manual farming and attract youth back to farming.

The new tractors will be supplied to 60 centers across Nigeria in a public-private partnership arrangement, according to a report in Ventures Africa.

The tractors are expected to put up an additional 375,000 ares of land under cultivation  and add 760,000 tons of food to Nigeria’s national output annually, said Akinwumi Adeshina, Nigeria’s agriculture minister.

The Nigerian government is pitching in 35 percent of the loans; the bank is paying for 35 percent; tractors vendors are paying 10 percent and service provider operators are paying 20 percent as equity, the report says.

Read more at Ventures Africa.