The trucks were impossible to miss.
Fresh green paint still gleamed beneath the early morning light. Their trailers carried brand-new tractors, mechanical planters, irrigation pumps, fertilizer spreaders, and stacks of boxed farming tools secured beneath heavy tarpaulins.
For years, the depot had been almost empty.
Budget after budget had supposedly modernized agriculture.
Official reports celebrated record equipment deliveries. Yet the machines had never reached the people who needed them.
This time was different.
Every vehicle carried a tracking device.
Every delivery had been assigned a public identification number.
Every farmer receiving equipment had already been verified. Magnus had insisted on it. "No middlemen," he said.
"No invisible contractors."
"No mysterious transportation fees."
"These machines go directly to the farmers."
Nobody argued.
News of the program spread even before the convoy reached the first district.
