Increased income as well as food and nutritional security for small scale producers through capacity building

The project areas in Burkina Faso and Mali are strongly favoured by nature and thanks to abundant rainfall, agriculture can be practiced there without too much difficulty. Despite this natural advantage, farmers in general and vegetable growers in particular fail to obtain the best benefits from operating their agricultural activities. This project is intended as a response to this deficiency and aims to support the female members of the two groups of market gardeners in order to increase their agricultural income.

This project started its activities in December 2020 and will last for a period of 19 months. As the project implementation strategy is participatory, activities to be implemented were presented to all those involved in the project, namely the local authorities as well as technical services of the communes of Koloko and Finkolo. The process of targeting the 200 women beneficiaries of the project was initiated and carried out under the leadership of HOPE’87. Therefore, it carried out working sessions with the group of market gardeners from the commune of Koloko called “Heremakono” and that of female market gardeners from the commune of Finkolo called “Gnogondemeton”. On this background, 100 market gardening households were targeted in the Koloko commune and 100 others in the Finkolo commune, which are respectively affiliated to two cooperatives that are represented by women.

With a view to setting up major market garden production infrastructures, a number of structuring activities have been undertaken. From the outset, this involves the development of a two-hectare market gardening site in both Koloko and Finkolo. To do this, the HOPE’87 team adopted a participatory approach based on consultation and the search for synergy. To this end, it carried out a series of working sessions with the municipal authorities of the two localities. Furthermore, two boreholes were completed and were equipped with water towers to supply the two market garden areas.

As for nutritional issues, the project team worked in close collaboration with the technical health services of the two communes – the Health and Social Promotion Center of Koloko and the Community Health Centre from Heremakono. This involved setting up Support Groups and Support for Infant and Young Child Feeding Practices (Groupes d’Aprentissage et de Suivie des Pratiques optimales d’Alimentation, GASPA) at the level of the aforementioned basic health structures, which are made up of pregnant women and mothers of children aged 0 to 23 months. It is with this in mind that seven GASPA were created on the Koloko site and seven on the Tietiébougou site in order to improve the nutritional situation of the babies.