South Africa Hello Tractor
Project Location:
Johannesburg, South Africa
Type of Organization:
Private company (small enterprise)
Organization Profile:
Rapid urbanization, aging farm populations, and depleting rural labor resources pose serious threats to our global food security. As rural labor resources come under continued pressure, tractors are the answer. When available, tractors can work 40x faster and be significantly less expensive than off-farm labor. Most farmers, however, can’t afford to own their own tractors and most tractor service providers operate well below their potential. Hello Tractor has developed a solution to address these problems. The company has developed a low-cost monitoring device that when placed on a tractor provides the owner with powerful software and analytics tools to ensure tractors are both profitable and properly cared for. The software connects tractor owners to farmers in need of tractor services – just like Uber for tractors. Hello Tractor also works with financial institutions and technicians to ensure tractor owners have the financing and spare parts needed to grow and protect their fleet. All of this work is being done to ensure that smallholder farmers have the resources they need to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing global agricultural market.
Website:
Video:
Project Overview:
What:
Hello Tractor is piloting a new Pay-as-you-go financial product where an individual tractor
owner can provide enough local farmers with hired tractor services to support commercial
financing of the asset.
The end product of tractor services is aimed at developing smallholder farmers who may not have the financial capacity to acquire a tractor but who would greatly benefit from having access to its services.
AGCO will provide 10 Massey Ferguson 65Hp tractors, with relevant attachments, to be fitted
with Hello Tractor technology and deployed in the field to test the Pay-as-you-go model.
If validated, the Pay-as-you-go model can be expanded to include other tractor sizes and used
as a tool to enable the sale of more tractors across Africa.
Where:
The pilot will be executed in South Africa where AGCO has recently opened a new regional
headquarters in Johannesburg.
In South Africa, this pilot will have the greatest chance of success as AGCO has well-
established commercial market and network of dealers familiar with rental concepts and with access to the full range of equipment, parts, and services to keep the pilot tractors operational
and available for optimal utilization.
When:
The pilot has launched and tractors will be deployed in September
The pilot should have results by the end of the year, which will lead into the scaling of the Pay-
as-you-go product into AGCO dealer locations across Africa in 2018.
Roles:
• Hello Tractor: Technology, business modeling, and operations
• AGCO: Provision of test tractors, network, and market research
• DLL: Facilitator, consultant, and financial product expertise
• Cornell S.M.A.R.T. program: provide scaling strategy for Pay-as-you-go product, through
appropriate dealer and other enterprise channels.
Skill Requirements:
• Financial modeling and transaction structuring
• Market research and analysis
• Sales and growth strategy
Suggested Timeline and Logistics:
Desk research will begin at project launch with the team traveling
to South Africa during the first week of December.