Greenseeder Hand Planter - Increasing the Productivity and Livelihood of Small Holder Farmers in Nigeria.

The GreenSeeder is a hand-planting device developed by Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma.  The tool was developed for farmers in the third-world, who are farming on marginal lands. The GreenSeeder is effective for planting corn and other large seeded vegetable crops like beans and other round seeded varieties.  The equipment helps smallholder farmers by decreasing the effort of planting and treated seeds to skin contact for farmers.

The planter can also be used to make appropriate side dressing applications of dry fertilizer next to the growing corn plants. This planter makes it possible to easily apply fertilizer near the growing plant roots, which results in less, and more efficient fertilizer use by farmers. This means better crop yields and less fertilizer runoff, which is better for the environment. The GreenSeeder is an appropriate tool for home gardeners and small scale farmers in the developing world. 

One great advantage of the planter is that it helps farmers to plant a single seed per hole as against the practice of planting 2-4 seeds thereby saving about 50% in cost of seedlings. It is further valuable as a side dress mid-season fertilizer applicator, via the simple replacement of an internal drum. The drum is the canister which holds the seed during planting.

Benefits

·        Remove chemically treated seeds from the hands of producers.

·        Decreased soil erosion from improved plant spacing.

·        Accommodate mid-season applications of urea-N fertilizer.

·        Place urea below the surface reducing NH3 losses.

·        Planter technology for all kinds of planted crops/seeds.

·        Significant increases in developing world maize production.  

·        Reduces back injury/pain for rural farmers due to bending to plant hectares of land.

·        The planter also result in improved plant spacing.

Halima Ilegogie, a 2015 awardee of Presidential Initiative on Youth Empowerment in Agriculture Program (YEAP) and a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow at Oklahoma State University intends to commercialize the GreenSeeder in Nigeria through collaboration with the Mechanization department of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Abuja.

Written by Halima Ilegogie, CEO of Heritage Agro Integrated Ventures.