Oggún - The $13,500 Tractor that's Changing the World

The concepts behind the Oggun tractor originated with the opening of relations with Cuba in December of 2014.

Saul Berenthal, a Cuban born software entrepreneur, had always told his partner, Horace Clemmons, one day we will start a business in Cuba. So, with the December 17th 2014 announcement the two them start investigating what business could they get into that would most benefit the Cuban people. After months of analysis, the things that stood out the most were:        

• Cuba imports 80% of their food        
• They have returned land in roughly 40 acre tracts to 300,000 family farms        
• There are only a total of 60,000 tractors in the country, most over 30 years old

Thus, was born CleBer (Clemmons & Berenthal). The phrase “Iron Horse Tractor” was given to the Cubans, they provided the name “Oggun”.  The god of metal works and the protector in their Santeria religion.

It was recognized from the beginning that several key problems had to be resolved if they were to provide tractors to Cuba farmers.

• Trust – to avoid the issue of trust the tractor design had to be Open and provided to the Cuban Government.  All parts had to be off the shelf.      
• Simple – Fix in the field or farmers shop·        
• Affordable        
• Ability to do 100% of fabrication and assembly in Cuba.

The model is not one of selling a tractor, but enabling them to manufacture a tractor. While attending the Cuban International Fair in Havana in 2015 CleBer realized that the business model and Oggun tractor design had global interest.  Many representatives from other countries that were attending the Fair, ask CleBer to establish factories in their countries.

To date CleBer has established distributors in four countries. Cuba taught CleBer many lessons, one of the most important ones was a statement by a Cuban farmer, “This is not a tractor, this is a way of thinking”. By that he was referring to the fact that CleBer understood that increasing crop production was a solution to a symptom, not a fix to the problem. This started CleBer off on their goal of working to help define solutions for everything involved with “seed/birth to table” issue.  Their work so far has focused on:

Our Team

GLOBAL BUSINESS MODEL

The Cuban experience formed the CleBer Global Business Model. The goal is to enable each country too use the Open System Design concept and manufacture as much of the tractor components in country as possible. Once they are doing 100% they will only have to pay CleBer a technology license fee for five years.

EQUIPMENT & IMPLEMENT ARCHITECTURE

As CleBer look at the small farm environment on a global basis, they realized that only a small percentage of the farmers were in the position to afford a tractor. Although that number is sufficient to make Oggun a business success, it solves very little of the global food supply problem and leaves out the largest percentage of the worlds farmers.This lead CleBer to the realization that in today’s market equipment/implements are designed to a specific market/niche and do not in general have the ability to move up or down within market/niche.  Thus CleBer has suggested an “Equipment and Implement Architecture”.  They are currently working with several Land Grant Universities in an effort to establish and architecture body similar to what happened with Open System Software.  

REBIRTH OF THE FAMILY FARM

Of all the problems, this is the most difficult.  All of the things we have talked about will have a significant impact on food production. Getting that food supply to the table in a timely and cost effective fashion requires that the solution be tailored to each region. CleBer has lain out a process suggestion for implementation on a regional basis in the United States.  Once that model is successful it can be adapted to other regions in other countries.

While this may seem like a near impossible concept to achieve, I say:“If we can send a person to the moon and back. If Elon Musk can return a rocket booster from outer space and land it on an X. Nothing we discussed here is remotely impossible, and it is every bit as worthwhile” Horace Clemmons 2017