Isenberg’s Priyank Arora and his collaborator at Duke University, Can Zhang have collaborated with Hello Tractor to help smallholder farmers in Africa.
Hello Tractor is an award-winning technology services platform that connects smallholder farmers with tractor owners to help farmers reap benefits of mechanization by eliminating the need for them to own an expensive equipment. Its business model can be best-described as the “Uber for tractors.” In a short span of six years, the company has mechanized over 500, 000 hectares of land across 13 countries in Africa and Asia.
While it has unlocked huge financial benefits for farmers and tractor operators, there are some obstacles that remain to be conquered. Currently, in the absence of a comprehensive and data-driven optimization model, tractor operators crisscross broad geographies, missing out on revenue opportunities and wasting valuable time and fuel.
Route optimization tool
However the partnership put together their expertise in optimization and operations management techniques and developed a route optimization tool to suggest what route the tractor should follow to maximize profit and socioeconomic outcomes.
The mathematical model uses information on demand patterns, Hello Tractor GPS monitoring device data, supply locations and attributes, weather forecast, and regional characteristics, to recommend the optimal route that should be followed annually.
“Unlike ride-sharing companies that have an easier handle over the number of the affiliated cars on the road in the desired location, farm equipment sharing platforms in emerging economies have to deal with a sparse and spatially-distributed supply of tractors. Our innovative route optimization tool integrates multiple data sources to build a predictive model that helps tractor owners manage their fleet profitably, which in turn, benefits smallholder farmers,” said Arora.
Adebola Olufunke, chief data scientist, at Hello Tractor estimate that this will not only reduce tractor owners’ operating costs by 25%, but also increase their revenues by up to 300%. This is in large part driven by increase in the area served by each tractor as well as the number of farmers served. The deployment of this tool has already begun in parts of Nigeria and Kenya, with plans to scale up the deployment across other nations in Africa and Asia.
