Based in Nairobi, Brazafric provides East African agricultural equipment and solutions. Coffee market leader with a strong presence in the bean sector, the company intends to expand its operations. With the Agro B platform, to be launched at the Brazil Africa 2019 Forum, the company will offer eight solutions to the agricultural sector, including existing portfolios and more agroinputs, logistics, financing and consulting for the rest of the African continent. “One of the biggest problems with agriculture in Africa is that there is no adequate funding for farmers of any size. Interest is expensive, ”says Marcos Brandalise, CEO of the company.
Brandalise believes the platform should expand the work the Brazafric group has been doing for 24 years in East Africa, where it provides equipment for soil preparation, planting and harvesting, grain storage silos and equipment for adding value to agricultural products.
The idea of Agro B platform is to add to the products and services already offered by the company, other technology and innovation solutions, as well as consulting. “Agriculture is undergoing a major transformation. And we believe in renewable, regenerative and agroforestry agriculture, which are new techniques. So we are being a mechanism of knowledge multiplication, ” says Brandalize.
The solutions designed for the Agro B platform have been tested in Brazil and elsewhere in the world and adapted to the African reality. The competitive advantage of the Brazafric Group, according to its CEO, is exactly the deep knowledge of the market. “There is a transformation on the continent, with the movement of cooperatives restructuring and also retrofitting and refitting. So there is no agriculture, no business, no added value. In addition to regenerative agriculture in Africa, it needs to add value to its products,” he explains.
Exchange between Brazil and Africa
Among the many changes facing the African agriculture sector, Brandalise highlights the interest of African farmers with technologies developed in Brazil. To meet this demand, the company has organized three annual trade missions to Brazil with farmers and investors. “The impact of this is very large. They come back excited and see many things that they can adapt here and modify, to their own situation, ” he says.
Created in 1996, the company Brazafric tries to bring Brazil closer to Africa in terms of solutions in the agricultural sector. According to Marcos Brandalise, the main challenges of Brazilian companies have always been linked to the lack of knowledge of the continent, especially the east. “The Brazilian businessman has always focused on the west coast, and on Portuguese-speaking countries, in addition to South Africa”. Brazafric was instrumental in opening its doors to Brazilian companies in East Africa, one of the fastest growing regions on the continent.
The similarities between Brazil and the East Africa region and the technological advances made by Brazil in the agricultural sector would be the engines for the company’s growth. “I created Brazafric precisely to make this midfield, and bring solutions that worked very well in Brazil which, naturally, worked in East Africa mainly because they are similar tropical regions, and that could thus leverage the agricultural sector here,” recalls Brandalise. Today , over 70% of Kenya’s coffee sector equipment is supplied by Brazafric and its Brazilian partners.
The launch of the Agro B platform in Brazil will take place during the programming of the Brazil Africa 2019 Forum: Food Security – path to Economic growth, an event that takes place on November 12 and 13 in São Paulo. More information at https://forumbrasilafrica.com/