APPLICATIONS AND CASE STUDIES Appraisal of farm tractor maintenance practices and costs in Nigeria

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate tractor maintenance practices and costs in Nigeria with a view to making replacement decisions and for overall farm budgeting. Design/methodology/approach - The information was obtained via a structured questionnaire. Tractor owners were grouped into three categories: government agricultural settlements, established farms, and individual farms. Data used for analysis were collected from 60 farms located in major farming centers of the southwestern part of Nigeria. The report includes the formulation of repair equations, which relate tractor repair cost as a percentage of initial purchase prices to cumulative hours of use. Life cycle costs of three commonly-used tractors were also estimated. The derived equations, which showed that the repair costs per hour increased with hours of use, were used to obtain the life cycle cost of each tractor model in different tractor owners' farms. Findings - The proposed equation was found to be the best fit with coefficient of determination (R-2) ranging from 0.992 to 0.996 for tractors in the three user categories. The trend observed in the life cycle costing of the three common tractors gave the general picture of when to replace each of the tractors based on the strategies being adopted by the tractor owners. Practical implications - The results of this study would serve as baseline information to tractor owners regarding optimum use of tractors for minimizing repair and maintenance cost per hour and for making replacement policy. It would also be helpful to government and other agencies for future planning in the provision of tractor services to the farmers at relatively lower repair and maintenance cost. Originality/value - Proves that a reduction in repair costs by careful operation and adequate maintenance could result in a significant reduction in tractor ownership costs.