Dec 29, 20214 min read

PROJECT - Income and food sovereignty with the transformation of the tomato

Updated: Feb 25, 2022

The project has created agricultural production methods and tomato processing that allow rural communities, an increase in food sovereignty and, thanks to the commercialization of canning products, increase their income. The project successfully tested the possibility of opening a training and production center in a remote sub-Saharan village, devoid of roads and electricity, capable of promoting social and economic emancipation by enhancing the environmental and human assets present. A training and canning production center has been built which allows 40 women from the village of Boussouma to produce 15,000 packs of tomato sauce every year. Since 2010, the Purée de tomates des femmes de Boussouma has been sold in many markets in the capital Ouagadougou and consumed in the best restaurants in the country. Burkina Faso imports 2,000 tons of canning products every year from countries that are known to trade various vegetable waste, passing them off as tomato derivatives. The production and marketing of tomato preserves allow for an increase in the incomes of the women involved in the processing and of the families involved in the cultivation of tomatoes.

General objective

Improve the resilience of the Boussouma community.

Actors

Association Femmes Actives de Boussouma

SMOM OdV

Verallia

Specific Objectives

Strengthen food security and reduce poverty.

Valuing local environmental and human resources.

Develop the plurality and "collective dimension" of rural systems.

Expected results

A building was built: management, training, production and storage center in 2010.

Processing and marketing of various preserves, capable of generating income with an annual production capacity of 15,000 packs of 700 grams of tomato sauce since 2011.

Income to women beneficiaries of the project and community of the structure.

Literacy activities for women participating in the project.

Activities

The networking of associations in the area, the construction of a training and production center made it possible to activate a training and development center for productive activities in the municipality of Boussouma. Today the Boussouma production center is the largest producer in Burkina Faso in terms of quantity and quality of tomato sauce, sold in the best restaurants in the country and retailers to the public. In the first year, 2011, 8,700 bottles of 700 gr. Passata were produced, from the processing of 16 tons of fresh tomatoes produced by the farmers of the main town. In 2021, 15,000 packs of tomato sauce were produced and the center is the destination of study for various missions of the Ministry of Agriculture. Thirty-three women are involved in processing and bottling with detailed forms and in compliance with HACCP and beyond. 50 families are involved in the production of tomatoes. Literacy courses and other productive activities encouraged by microcredit activities are being activated.

Need Analysis

The community of Boussouma, a prisoner of regional underdevelopment, is located in a very vast territory, in which 30,400 people live distributed in 16 villages without electricity, adequate water sources, few schools, little health care, without agricultural vehicles, roads , places to store products, equipment to market livestock, public or private vehicles.

The survey on the perception of poverty identified 4 causes:

a) illiteracy: in fact, the lack of knowledge of a written language effectively denies opportunities for human and economic development and therefore the difficulty of relating to new realities;

b) the lack of continuous sources of income: the precariousness due to the prolonged non-rainy period does not offer job opportunities;

c) lack of share capital: such as widowhood or emigration;

d) uncertainty about the state of health, with the consequent costs.

The effects of poverty are particularly frightening in a rural area where survival is often linked to precarious production deriving from agro-pastoral activities carried out in areas subjected to very strong anthropogenic pressure, under the constant threat of increasing environmental degradation, which materializes in a pressing process of degradation of the soil and its productive capacities, as well as the loss of both animal and plant biodiversity. The degradation of resources and extreme poverty (the average annual per capita income is 200 euros) without adequate countermeasures feed each other and put the population in a terrible grip. For these reasons, Burkina is a country where achieving a short, medium and long-term balance between food needs and food availability on the domestic market appears to be a difficult goal to achieve with a ruling class unable to take up these challenges and develop them as a problem. politic. The critical problematic of food security is grafted into a fragile reference framework in which the economic base remains very weak, since the other economic sectors, industry, crafts and services (education, health, social assistance, civil infrastructures, water) are very deficient and are struggling to take off just as the long-awaited contribution in the private sector is struggling to materialize.

Local context

The municipality of Boussouma, 160 km from the capital Ouagadougou, has a very large area (371 sq km), 1/10 of the Aosta Valley, and its 30,400 inhabitants live in 16 different villages. Boussouma is not crossed by provincial roads, and is therefore practically an enclave; it is reached by dirt tracks, is without electrification, has few brick houses and water wells scattered throughout the area. There is a lack of schools in adequate numbers, sanitation and sanitation, motor vehicles and facilities for production and commerce. The main activities of the populations are agriculture and livestock. The literacy rate is 12.9% for women versus 24.8% for men.

BURKINA FASO is one of the poorest countries in Africa: a little less than Italy, it has 13 million inhabitants; 27% live on less than a dollar a day, the literacy level is 25% and have a human development index of 0.302 (175th out of 177). Healthcare: the infant mortality rate is 107 per 1000 live births, access to health services is 29% and the hope of