Agriculture
in Burkina Faso
Promoting prosperous farming in Burkina Faso
Engineers Without Borders is working to shift farmers in Burkina Faso from farming for daily survival, to farming as a lasting source of income by promoting leadership and innovation within farmer unions and federations.
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Farming for survival
Issa Ouédraogo is a vegetable farmer in rural Burkina Faso. Although he works hard cultivating his land, Issa is often unable to harvest enough high quality crops to earn an income and support his growing family. Business has the power to change this. Yet, Issa lacks the technical knowledge and business training to shift from farming for survival to farming as a lasting source of income.
Issa’s challenges are not unusual in Burkina Faso. Most farmers, like Issa, do not have the opportunity to gain the skills necessary to take a business approach to agriculture, and as a result, are unable to earn enough income to improve their lives.
Learn about our volunteers in Burkina Faso
Supporting leadership and innovation
Engineers Without Borders works with farmer organisations in Burkina Faso, including farmer unions and federations, to help rural families begin to farm as a business. EWB works with the Family Farm Management program which helps farmers gain the planning, analysis and monitoring skills to earn a profit from their crops.
Yet despite the importance of the Family Farm Management program, our volunteers have recognized that it has not evolved as fast as needed to meet the changing needs of Burkina Faso’s farmers.
Building leadership and facilitation capabilities
For the Family Farm Management program to be successful, the field staff responsible for implementing the services must remain responsive to individual farmer challenges. EWB volunteers work alongside union and federation field staff to improve their coaching, presentation, and decision-making capabilities.
In 2008, EWB began working with field staff Adama Sidibé in from Boucle du Mouhoun, to improve his facilitation, project management and budgeting skills. Although he had little experience implementing the Family Farm Management service prior to EWB’s arrival, Sidibé is now one of the program’s leaders in the region.
Improving effectiveness and innovation
Burkina Faso’s farmers have diverse and varying levels of business and education experience – changing the effectiveness of the Family Farm Management service with each new farmer group. Recognizing this, we are helping our partner organisations to better analyze this experience, and respond with tailored services through the Family Farm Management program.
While we are adapting current services to meet specific farmer needs – such as access to credit, markets or inputs – we are also helping the organisations to test innovative new programs relevant to the needs of their farmers. For many farmers, like Issa Ouédraogo, improving innovation within the Farming Farm Management program has ensured that they have access to the services necessary to meet their needs.
The way forward
Over the next three years we will further improve the Family Farm Management program, while also exploring five new innovations including the development of a Burkina Faso-wide Family Farm Management program guide for all the major actors in the agricultural sector – including the national government.
With proven impact on our partner and thus on many families, including that of Issa Ouédraogo, EWB is now looking to the future where we envision farmers are able to farm for prosperity, and not just daily survival.
