The shipment included 10 Kioti DK551 tractors with ROPS - eight of them fitted with front loaders – and spares and equipment. It was part of an aid package to the Tuvalu Government funded by the European Union.
Tuvalu – formerly the Ellice Islands – is collection of nine atoll and reef islands, directly north of New Zealand, midway between Australia and Hawaii. It has about 10,000 people and is at severe risk from rising sea levels associated with climate change.
European Union aid goes to infrastructure development, especially reliable water supplies, effective sanitation and waste management, coastal protection and the provision of renewable energy.
The tractors were trucked from Morrinsville to Auckland and loaded into three containers for shipping to Fiji, then to barges for the 1000km voyage to Tuvalu.
Ross Nesdale, Power Farming’s marketing manager says the Korean-built Kioti tractors were chosen for the contract because of their reliability, strength and versatility.
“The DK range are serious tractors with the strength to handle a lot of heavy work, but still nimble and compact enough to work around a yard. They have optimised combustion, 4-cylinder turbo diesel engines that are reliable and economic.
“These are solid no-frills products that are easy to maintain, so they’re the ideal machine for Tuvalu.”
Nesdale believes Power Farming’s reputation for service, product support, its long history – now over 60 years in the industry – and it being one of the largest suppliers of tractors and farm machinery in Australasia, were the reasons it was chosen to fulfil the contract.
Power Farming’s training manager for New Zealand and Australia, Mark Daniel, will travel to Tuvalu to train locals to run and maintain the equipment.
Power Farming has In recent years shipped tractors and agricultural machinery to Fiji and Samoa, and it is currently organising to send tractors to Pitcairn Island.
