STANDAGE Corporation, Mitsubishi Corporation Nigeria Pte. Ltd., Zowasel, and Honda Manufacturing (Nigeria) have agreed to work towards improving agricultural productivity and living standards through the dissemination of agricultural machinery to small-scale farmers in Nigeria, and have signed a MOU.

An overview of the MOU can be found here.

https://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/files/100386243.pdf

The roles of the four companies are as follows:

• Mitsubishi Corporation Nigeria：Overall coordination, facilitation, agricultural machinery rental PoC partner, support for building a used agricultural machinery ecosystem in Japan
• Zowasel：Providing services for small-scale farmers, such as agricultural machinery rental PoC, GAP training, and matching with agricultural product buyers
• Standage: Importing used agricultural machinery from Japan and building an ecosystem for used Japanese agricultural machinery in Nigeria
• Honda Manufacturing (Nigeria)：Provision of Honda-made agricultural machinery and support for maintenance of said machinery

Nigeria boasts the largest population in Africa, and is expected to grow from the current 200 million to over 400 million by 2050, making it the third most populous country in the world. Approximately 35% of the population is engaged in agriculture, and the majority of these small-scale farmers have low incomes and find it difficult to purchase agricultural machinery.Much of agriculture is still done by hand, resulting in low yields for the labour required and a low standard of living.

Therefore, it is believed that widespread use of agricultural machinery will also help solve social problems.

We will contribute to the spread of Japanese-made agricultural machinery in Nigeria and to further improving the productivity and living standards of small-scale farmers.