RiceAfrika, an agricultural technology firm, in its efforts to address the age-long harvest challenge of small-scale grain farmers, has introduced harvesters hiring services to reduce drudgery and harvest-time losses associated with manual harvesting.
Ibrahim Maigari Ahmadu, the founder of the firm while addressing journalists noted that the objective of the organization is to improve rice and wheat production in Africa, adding that harvesters hiring services is now operational in Nigeria with plans to roll out in Tanzania, Senegal and Madagascar.
The rice combine harvester is a versatile machine designed to finish the whole processes of rice or wheat harvesting from reaping, threshing and grain cleaning.
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The machine is an economically important labour-saving tool used to separate grains from the straw that comprises the stems and any remaining leaves of the crop with limited nutrients
Ahmadu explained that a major pain point shared by over 90 per cent of rural rice farmers in Nigeria is manual harvesting, noting that harvesting one acre of land would require about 30 people for over 15 hours with sickles, but harvesters would do the harvesting in less than one hour.
He said: “We got into action and found a reputable manufacturer in China, and ordered a few modern, eco-friendly easy-to-use harvester machines, customised to our local weather and terrain. It is a wasteful, time-consuming, expensive and tedious activity to harvest rice or wheat manually.”
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Country Head, RiceAfrika Nigeria, Ifeoluwa Olatunji stated that they provide training on harvester operations and maintenance, adding that youths of rice communities (mostly manual labourers on rice farms) are now employed as operators, mechanics, and booking agents.
“It is so inspiring to see rural rice farmers hiring our harvesters. Interestingly, our harvesters are fitted with IoT devices enabling us to track location, fuel consumption, speed, and control the harvester operations from our office in Lagos.”
