This month we have been very proud to welcome a new distributor into the Futurepump family. Hatoum Trading Company, a successful family run hardware and agricultural machine supplier, decided to add the Futurepump SF1 to their product line.
They already have a wealth of experience in the sector from years of selling water pumps for irrigation, and with the Futurepump SF1 they embrace the fantastic opportunity for solar irrigation in Ghana.
Headquartered in Tamale, Northern Ghana, Hatoum Trading Company has boldly taken on the challenge to supply the solar pump in the whole of Ghana. This is an exciting move into West Africa for Futurepump.
Small-scale agriculture in Ghana
Agriculture is fundamental to Ghana’s economy and employs almost 50% of the population with the majority of farms less than two hectares in size (Oxford Business Group (OBG), 2017). The Northern region of Ghana is known as the agricultural area of Ghana, here 69.7% of people are employed in agriculture (Ministry of Food and Agriculture, 2016). Recently, increasing population pressure in this region has stimulated continuous cultivation of land. This is in contrast to before, where most adopted a fallow cropping system where crops are rotated leaving a section of land unseeded during a growing season.
This move to continuous cultivation comes with new challenges and pressures on the land regarding fertiliser use, irrigation and machinery for tasks such as tillage. Added pressure also comes from climate change and increased drought which have become a real threat in the last few years (OBG, 2017).
In this region, external development agencies play an active role in spreading knowledge and adoption of new techniques and technologies, like solar irrigation equipment. As a result of this demand, during the past 10 years there has been a vast increase in the availability of farming inputs for smallholders.
Interestingly, agro-input dealers are mainly found in bigger towns and centres and in fewer numbers than the South of Ghana. To meet the growing needs of the Northern agricultural region more businesses are setting up to reach these farmers. For the North this is good news, improved availability of inputs has increased the quantity and quality of the produce in the Northern region and this trend looks set to continue.
Hatoum Trading is one of the companies that saw this need for making agricultural tools and supplies accessible to the Northern Region. Now they are the first to bring the benefits of solar irrigation!
The product launch in December
Earlier this month, Martina headed out to Ghana to give technical training to Hatoum Trading’s main staff. This is a key part of becoming a distributor for Futurepump as we cover the function, maintenance and repairs of the solar pumps. This enables distributors to provide high-quality after-sales support to all solar pump customers.
During this week, on the 5th December, Hatoum Trading officially launched the Futurepump SF1 in Ghana. The launch involved a demonstration of the pump and speeches from Iyad Hatoum, Hatoum Trading Managing Director and Alhaji Issahaku Alhassan, Regional Coordinating Director.
With the training complete and the launch a success, this means Hatoum Trading Company are now completely ready to sell, install and maintain the Futurepump SF1! Just in time for Christmas!
Get your Futurepump solar pump in Ghana now – demand is high, and you don’t want to miss out!
Interested in becoming a Futurepump distributor yourself? Sign up here!
Author: Helen Davies
