Agric firm to establish call centre for farmers

Springfield Agro, an agricultural firm said it plans to establish a toll free call centre for  Nigerian farmers in August. The effort, however, is aimed at providing solutions to problems being faced by the farmers .
The Managing Director of the firm, Tarun Kumar Das, who made this known during a briefing in Lagos, said the toll free call would allow farmers to discuss issues they face in their activities on the farm.
He stressed that the farmers would be given a choice to speak in any of the three major Nigerian languages.
He said “about 50 percent of the cultivation in Nigeria is done by hand and hoes while only 10 percent is through mechanisation. Others use ploughs and other small mercenaries. As of now, the situation in Nigeria is such that only about 30,000 tractors are active while the country needs about 10,000 tractors every year to achieve the needed level of mechanisation.”
The MD who noted that tractors are capital intensive, advised farmers to group themselves as efforts to procure and maintain them.
“Tractors are quite expensive and a small farmer cannot afford it. He really does not need it. If there is a group of farmers, it will be more viable financially and commercially. So, not all farmers need to own a tractor, rather, all they need is an access to one whenever they want to cultivate their farms”, he added.
Adama.L