Farmers to lose out as equipment renter considers withdrawing from market

 East Africa’s farm equipment sharing platform, TingA, has announced it may be pulling out its agricultural equipment from the market, a move that will affect thousands of farmers who rely on the equipment renter.

According to the firm’s management, some of its financiers have pulled out, making it hard to sustain its agricultural business.

Sources privy to the agricultural mechanization firm revealed that Oikocredit, a worldwide cooperative and social investor who had invested at least Ksh. 200 million in the firm is repossessing its tractors.

At least 24 tractors across the country have been withdrawn from the firm. TingA has been renting out farm equipment and implements such as planters and harvesters.

The renter has also let go part of its team as it scales down on the agricultural programs. The firm said that it will be shifting its focus from owning the agricultural mechanization space with the exception of potato transport and storage following hard economic times and lender aggression.

The firm secured funding from various stakeholders for impact leasing which debt was to be serviced for a period agreed upon by respective stakeholders.

It said that these funds were utilized to purchase various farm equipment which were dedicated to various projects in various parts of the country including Hola, Bura, Meru, Narok where there was limited access to such services and they have not made much to enable them pay off the loans and support the program.

TingA’s Agricultural Projects Coordinator Consolata Wangui said,

“Due to various challenges we have faced with owning farm equipment, we are shifting from owning farming equipment and hence cost of ploughing to increase as we will be now relying on other tractor owners to mechanize farms. With this we will not be able to subsidize our service as before to aid small scale farmers. This has been occasioned by the fact that we have been unable to get the pricing to support the debt.”

The firm clarified that other tractor and farm implement owners will continue using their portal and app without any interference.