High cost of hiring tractors worries Taraba farmers

High cost of hiring tractors is causing concern to farmers in Taraba state.

Findings reveal that many farmers cannot afford to hire tractors even as rainfall starts in most parts of the state.

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Many farmers, our finding revealed,  have reduced the size of their farms because of cost of hiring tractors.

It was gathered that farmers hire a tractor at a rate of  between N45,000 to N50,000 per day and are expected to  fuel and pay an allowance to the driver.

A farmer, Alhaji Chindo  Kabir said he hired a tractor to work in his farm for 10 days at the cost of N45,000 per day.

He said he would also fuel the tractor and also pay allowance to the driver daily for the  10 days.

He said, “When you put everything together you will discover you are paying too much for the service.”

Alhaji Chindo said local government councils and the state government are not running tractor hiring services and private owners of tractors are taking advantage to exploit farmers

According to him, there is scarcity of tractors and farmers have to book and pay in advance before securing the service.

He said there was a high demand of tractors by farmers in the state as a result of a rush into farming by people in the state.

North East Trust finding also revealed that some people from neighbouring states have sieze the opportunity to move into the state.

Alhaji Sani Wakili, who owns tractors attributed the high cost of hiring a tractor to the cost of spare parts and diesel.

He said though it appeared that owners of tractors were making money from the tractor hiring business but they were also spending more money on maintenance and fueling.

The state Commissioner for Agricture, Dr David Kassa, told North East Trust that the state government no longer runs tractors hiring service because of the attitude of operators.

He said most of the tractor operators were not paying into government coffers the actual revenue they generated which has discouraged government to continue with the programme.