Location: Western Burkina Faso
Status: Ongoing.
Duration: March 2019 - June 2023
Local Partner: ASFES (The Solidarized Association with women and children in the Sahel)
Improving the agricultural production of organic tiger nut through the empowerment of women tiger nut farmers and the use of appropriate methodologies in Western Burkina Faso. Towards food sovereignty.
The total cost of the project so far: 200,549.58 €.
The Project was co-financed with various public and private subsidies, as well as with its own funds.
Consult the different phases of the project:
- Phase 1: Campaign 2019 - 2020
- Phase 2: Campaign 2020 - 2021
- Phase 3: Campaign 2021 - 2022
- Phase 4: Campaign 2022 - 2023
The Mousso Faso Cooperative (from now on, CMF) was born in 2017 with the idea of developing and promoting the cultivation of organic tiger nuts with appropriate methodologies, as well as improving local production and export capacities, especially among women, who have traditionally worked in this agricultural sector in Burkina Faso. The main axis of action is to develop an organic and fair trade crop that allows the producer families and local communities to live in dignity. In the same way, the aim is to improve the appalling working conditions in which the local cultivation of tiger nuts has been carried out until today by women, as shown in the documentary film "Tigernut. La Patria de las Mujeres Íntegras" (Tigernut. The Homeland of Whole Women).
For years, the tiger nut-producing families in Burkina Faso have been victims of abusive foreign trade practices, in which the farming families were exploited by companies from Western countries that allowed extreme working conditions in which the women worked under continuous inhalation of dust, in a climate that reached temperatures between 30 and 45°C, without any protection, without any kind of protection, without any kind of protection.
T
he CMF is born with several objectives:
- To promote the organic cultivation and fair trade of tiger nuts.
- To improve the working conditions of the women
- To provide tools and increase the degree of mechanization in order to reduce the hardness of the work.
- To unite small farming families in Burkina Faso in order to meet the growing demand for organic tiger nuts on international markets.
- To join forces on the road to food sovereignty.
In short, the aim is to create an organizational structure that will enable them to have decent employment. Ninety-five percent of the beneficiaries are women from different ethnic groups, and the Cooperative was created precisely to promote the role of women in the development of communities, promoting a crop historically associated with women, and eliminating, as far as possible, intermediaries who do not add value to the chain.
The project is carried out together with our local partner ASFES (Solidarity Association for Women and Children in the Sahel), as a partner with whom we have been working for many years on various cooperation projects.
To promote the project from CIM Burkina during all this time, we have contacted universities, agricultural personnel, town councils, local associations, and potential clients and cooperatives. As a result, we have obtained the support of several city councils (Valencia, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Torrent, Aspe, Aldaia, Sagunto, Blanes, and Meliana), the Galván Orange Canarian Foundation, as well as the support of dozens of anonymous people and small companies that made various contributions through a crowdfunding initiative, as well as other private donations.
This project is being implemented in various phases corresponding to the cooperative's 2019/2020 production campaign (Phase 1), the 2020/2021 campaign (Phase 2), and the 2021/2022 campaign (Phase 3). The objective to be achieved is to keep alive the centuries-old tradition of tiger nut cultivation, while generating decent employment for families in this region, significantly improving the working conditions of women producers, and moving towards food sovereignty with a local product of millenary origin with the empowerment of local communities.
Therefore, this project allows the development of local communities, generating dignified employment that will allow families to get ahead by their own means, ensuring for the community in general, and for women in particular, access to fundamental rights such as education and health.
It is a viable and, above all, sustainable project, which ties in with a dozen of the Sustainable Development Goals - ODS (on 25 September 2015, world leaders adopted a set of global goals to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda; each goal has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years).
It should also be noted that one of the objectives of the Mousso Faso Cooperative is specifically the reinvestment of potential profits in education and health, including training for the elderly, creation of school infrastructures, etc., which is perfectly in line with our statutory objectives.
Co-financed by:
- Torrent City Council: 5,000€ in 2019, 7,500€ in 2021 and 7,500 € in 2022
- Sta. Coloma de Gramenet Town Council: 5.000 € in 2019 and 15.425,61 € in 2021
- Aldaia Town Council: 19.289,37 € in 2019 and 29.504,06 € in 2022
- EUPV (United Left of the Valencian Country): 5.500 € in 2019
- Sagunt Town Council: 13.549,67 € in 2019
- Canarian Foundation Naranjo Galván: 3.000 € in 2019
- City council of Aspe: 7.465,82 in 2019
- Valencia City Council: 59.899,22 € in 2019
- Blanes Town Council: 6.222,17 € in 2021 and 5.233,94 in 2022
- Meliana Town Council: 4.201,30 € in 2021
TOTAL co-financed to date: 194,291.16 euros
TOTAL contribution with own funds so far: 6,258.42 euros.
