Imara Tech

In Tanzania and many low- and middle-income countries, smallholder farmers lack access to mechanized agricultural equipment. The supply of mechanized equipment is limited, and available options are often too costly for smallholder farmers.

As a result, around 98 percent of the small farms in Tanzania rely on manual farming techniques, which require heavy phyiscal work, significant time, and labour lower their productivity. One example of farm labour is separating the grains from a plant after harvest, known as threshing. Field data suggest that farmers spend an average of three hours threshing a single sack of maize, which equals to over a week of manual labour for each acre of maize farmed. Other crops such as sorghum and beans are similarly laborious.

Lack of mechanization perpetuates a cycle of poverty. Manual labour results in low productivity and missed income opportunities for smallholders, which in turn limits farmers' access to technology. Innovative solutions are needed to replace manual labour with suitable and affordable mechanized agricultural equipment for smallholder farmers.

Imara Tech is a Tanzanian startup that manufactures mechanized agricultural equipment from local materials. Imara Tech's Multi-Crop Threshing machine separates common staple crops such as maize, beans, sorghum, pigeon peas and sunflower up to 75 times faster than manual threshing, cutting threshing times by days or even weeks.

Mechanized threshing reduces grain and seed damage, improves the end-product quality, and enables smallholder farmers to generate more income by selling their produce in higher-value markets. Easily portable (e.g. by motorcycle), the Multi-Crop Threshing machine can earn smallholder farmers US$ 10 per hour as an income-generating business, paying off the initial investment within one harvest season.

Imara Tech has been testing the effectiveness of different marketing channels as they continue scaling up their operations across Tanzania including a dealership model that leverages the proximity of existing agro vet shops to smallholder farmers. During 2022, Imara Tech sold about 200 machines that provided services to about 8,000 smallholder farmers mostly in Dodoma and Arusha, helping them reduce labour costs by 25% and post-harvest time by over 50%. 

Going forward, Imara Tech is exploring a new business model consisting of cooperating with asset-based loan providers who would finance trained youth to purchase Imara Tech’s machines and service farmers and own the machines once they fully repay the loans.