A Brazilian company, seeking a share of the Nigerian market, is targeting the country’s farmers with its tools. Agriculture is an important industry in Brazil, just as it is in Nigeria and other Africa countries, Funbi Sowande, the company’s Marketing and Sales Manager in Nigeria said, drawing similarities between the two countries and explaining, at the same time, the company’s presence in Nigeria.
About a month ago, when the company launched its agricultural products, among other products and tools in Nigeria, Sowande said that the company was attempting to “further promote the use of quality agricultural tools” in Nigeria and assured that Nigerian farmers can bank on their tools for ease of farming; adding that consequentially, Tramontina products could potentially help the farmers increase their revenue and income.
Tramontina is known for producing 18,000 different products in household and agriculture tools, homeware products, and furniture and kitchen equipment.
Agreeing that there are many challenges facing smallholding farming in Nigeria, Sowande said she believes that with appropriate technology in place, Tramontina’s products and farm implements can help smallholder farmers cultivate their lands in much easier ways and help improve yield.
“Tramontina products are different and unique from other products. Also, the amazing cutting power guarantees higher productivity when using the product while the shovels are made with very resistant laser cut body and high quality carbon steel,” Sowande said.
To familiarise the company with buyers and distributors across Nigeria, Sowande said she and her team began an activation campaign in some parts of Nigeria, starting from Lagos and moving to Aba and more recently, Ibadan, Oyo State.
“With the successes recorded since we first established our first unit in 1911, our brand is available in more than 120 countries and with Nigeria, we hope to push it beyond expectations and make it a household name in Nigeria,” Sowande said during an interview with Nigerian Tribune’s Agriculture last week Tuesday.
She said company’s activation exercise to promote its products to farmers and its targeted consumers in the South West, said Tramontina is “in Nigeria to improve people’s lives,” adding that the company, which has been operating in more 40 countries in Africa for more than a decade, is currently focusing on Nigeria, Africa’s largest populous country, to “introduce and cement our presence in the Nigerian market.”
The company, she said, could possibly start a production line in Nigeria, but at the moment, is working with a number of distributors to cement its relationship with the Nigeria market, most especially the farmers.
She said the outcome of this relationship could possibly account for the establishment of the production line in Africa, but current aim is to make the products popular among farmers, gardeners, home owners and general consumers, she added.
The company, which currently operates in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Botswana, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Sudan and other 32 African countries and produces home, kitchen and agricultural tools and wares, has been in existence for more than a hundred years.