The Burkina visit provided the West Africa outreach team an opportunity to travel to some villages and interact directly with farmers. The team traveled approximately 100km west of Ouagadougou to a village near Koudougou called Reo. The village is located near a dry creek and is provided shade by Mango, Neem, and Baobob trees.Acacia and eucalyptus provide wood fuel and goat browsing. Moringa provide spice. Small goat and pigs foraged around the village and deposited manure about the fields.
Our visit came at the end of the dry season and it will be several months until the primary cereal crops are sown. Vegetable waste and furrows from the past season’s sorghum and millet crops were evident. The family garden was fenced in with sorghum stalks and planted in small rectangular plots radiating from a shallow (10M) well located at the center of the garden. The garden both helps to provide for the family’s food needs and also provides fresh market cash crops for income during the dry season.
The garden was planted with peppers, eggplant, and cherry tomatoes and several types of herb. One type of vegetables planted had been completely wiped out by some type of leaf cutting insect. We asked the farmer about it and she felt defenseless against the pest and needs information on how she might save her crop. She is concerned because she does not have money to buy more seed.
Each family compound in the village had a garden. Some families have more than one member cultivating gardens (husband, wife and perhaps older children). We met a 15 your-old young man named William who was raising and selling vegetables to pay his school fees and, if profits allow, to purchase a bicycle. William was raising cabbage, eggplant and cherry tomatoes but instead of selling them in the local market, he was selling them to a trader who shipped them as far away as Cote d’Ivoire. A budding Burkinabe entrepreneur!
As we made our way through the village, our entourage grew to 19 children of varying ages. The women had begun grinding millet flour for the evening meal and we had been given an opportunity to get several perspectives from the farmers in the village. When we asked the farmers what type of information they could use to increase the productivity of their cereal crops and gardens, we heard:
“Where can I get the best seeds at an affordable price?”
“Where can I get inexpensive pesticides and who can tell me how to use it?”
“Where is the best price for my crop?”
“Why would I need information from someone? I am the farmer here!”
It was clear that there are opportunities to build upon traditional practices to improve productivity with location-specific information. It was also clear that what they are doing works for them and works very well for this village.
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