Jul 20 2010 @ 10:14

Innovating for the future in Burkina Faso

Rosanne Chabot is a agricultural engineer and has been in Africa with EWB since 2008. She shares her experiences working with Simon Kadéba, an innovative farmer she works with in Burkina Faso.

Each fall, the farmers that I work with here in Dédougou, Burkina Faso carefully to their crops day and night to ensure their families will have enough food and income for the coming year. This is the harvest season, and every fall it determines if a family will prosper.

My work here is focused on building a business approach to agriculture, as most farmers here have difficulty planning and analyzing their harvests to make certain that the harvest season will be fruitful. There are few opportunities to gain these business skills here, so most farmers can’t earn enough money to improve their family’s life during this important time.

When I think about just how much business training positively impacts the lives of Burkina Faso’s farmers, Simon Kadéba immediately comes to mind. I met him last November, when I spent two days with his family to learn more about the harvest season.

Like most days in Burkina Faso, the sun was blazing overhead. Walking beside Simon through his farm, he proudly told me how his sorghum crop looked a lot healthier than in previous years. He was right – the plants had grown tall, and were looking nice and green. Simon said that this year he had made certain he could afford to purchase mineral fertilizer on credit from the union.

The income from Simon’s healthy sorghum crops meant that his children could attend school and have sufficient medical care. It also made certain that he could continue working on the house he had diligently saved to build over the last few years.

Simon stands proudly next to his chicken coop, where he fashioned an innovative clean water trough to address the fact that his hens were dying of contaminated water and the persistent heat.

But the success of Simon’s sorghum didn’t happen overnight. For a while, I had been working with Simon’s farmer union to develop 6 training programs to analyze their yearly expenditures, cereal production, sales, cost data and profit margins. Because of this business training, the farmers could identify strategies to increase the productivity of their land, like Simon’s investment in appropriate fertilizers.

“Look at my house,” Simon said to me, nodding toward the red brick house with a tin roof. “I have built this with the support of the training and my cereals.”

As we continued chatting, Simon and I walked past his chicken coop – so I poked my head in to see what it looked like. Among the chickens, I couldn’t help but notice that Simon had built a drinking trough using upside down water bottles. This innovation, simple as it may sound, is ensuring that Simon’s guinea fowl won’t perish because of the heat or contaminated water.

Arriving back at his newly constructed house, I thought to myself that Simon is a true entrepreneur. With EWB's help, Simon has harnessed his entrepreneurial spirit to operate his farm as a profitable business.

As this year’s harvest fast approaches, I recently visited Simon once again. He is working hard to make sure his harvest will be successful. Given his continued innovation and proven business acumen,I am confident that his family’s life will continue to improve.