Joshua’s Visit to Burkina Faso
In January, Joshua Haruna (AMH Founder and CEO) made a visit to Burkina Faso to see what they are doing there with moringa. He came back with glowing reports. In this article we have asked Joshua about the visit.
The Visit – Day by Day
Monday 27 January
Travel and Arrival
It was about 14 hour land travel from Sunyani, Ghana to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. I left Sunyani on Sunday around 9:00 am and arrived at Hamile a town in Jirapa/Lambussie district around 4:00 pm in the upper west region of Ghana.
Hamile is a border crossing town which is still part of Ghana. I had to spend the night because there wasn’t a bus to Ouagadougou in the evenings. As early as 7am, I crossed the Ghana border from Hamile to Ouessa, Burkina Faso.
One interesting question I was asked by the immigration officials was, “Why traveling on the mission of MORINGA, which they have all over and well known by everyone?”
Then they further asked, “Tell us my friend what is new about Moringa?”
I felt more comfortable to preach “Eat and Plant moringa” and explain more on 2020 theme. We became friends and exchanged contacts .
The bus took off from Ouessa at 8am and arrived about 2pm in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Sitting in a long bus looking side by side seeing very dried fields with short trees, and sandy and leveled landscape was just adventurous.
On arrival, Mr Moise Sawadogo (agronomist) and Mr Nadembega Ferdinand were so happy to meet me for the first time in over 3 years of online communication. I was surprised to be welcomed with their traditional greetings. It was beautiful and my first experience.
I was driven to my hotel, took my french lunch and had a sound sleep.
I woke up with lots of messages and missed calls from people expecting my arrival. was so happy and excited ????.
In the evening we had our first meeting with Moise Sawadogo (agronomist) who accepted to be our francophone admin and work with his team to bridge the communication gap between anglophones and francophones. Also at the meeting were Mr Tiendrebeogo Jean Mark (professional translator), Mr Nadembega Ferdinand, Mr Kabore Wendyeghabmoma Theodore and myself (Joshua Haruna). Venue: Central National Cardinal Paul Zoungrana (Ouagadougou -BurkinaFaso).
Topics discussed were:
- Formal introduction and theme for 2020;
- Mission and vision of the hub;
- Contributions and suggestions on the way forward for the hub with french speaking countries.
- Challenges most of them face joining telegram and filling the online application form which is only in English;
- They requested for more study materials;
- Language being a major barrier hindering their involvement to participate in hub activities.
Tuesday 28 January
Shop Visit
In the morning we contacted Dr Philippe about our interest in visiting his shop. We were surprised to realize he had travelled to Bobo-Dioulasso, another commercial city of Burkina Faso. But he made arrangements with his workers for our visit. His shop, Daimant Vert, is on the ground floor of a 5 star hotel called Laico Ouaga 2000.
Wednesday 29 January
First Farm Visit
Mr Thierry came to the hotel and picked us up for breakfast against our travel to his farm.
The farm owner, Thierry Justin W-Z Yameogo, was not good at speaking English, so we couldn’t communicate easily, but we tried our best to understand each other. The distance from Ouaogadougu to his farm in Nakamtenga-Koubri is 25 km.
Thierry has 8 years of farming experience with a total farm size of 13 hectares. Four of those hectares has been allocated for Moringa leaf production. Trees in the images are 3-4 months old, but not growing well because of insufficient soil nutrition. You can see from the pictures.
Moise Sawadogo, as his technical advisor, advised him to use cow dung all through the farm and that is what is helping his MORINGA trees grow better now .
From land acquisition, clearing trees, leveling the land, fencing, a year maintenance is estimated to be 20 million FCFA.
The total workers on 3 farms are 10. The white 40ft containers in the images are to house the farm workers.
Thierry isn’t only into farming, but also has poultry farm, cows and goats. He mixes Moringa powder to their feed meal to feed them and also cut fresh Moringa leaves, put in the water for the chickens, cows and goats to drink .
His whole farm is mechanized with an irrigation system.
Second Farm Visit
Next we travelled to a farm in Berma-Ouaogadougu, which is 22 km from the city. We met the owner, Mrs Ouedraogo Sawadogo Denise, who had aquired the new land for Moringa leaf production. She had already planted moringa seeds on her 1 hectare farm.
Meeting at 8 pm.
Mr ABDOU HIMA (Economist- Planificateur, consultant independent) who travelled with his friend Mr Zakou Mayaki Moussaka (Director General of the Niger Agency for Agriculture Development and the Environment ANIDAE) from Niamey-Niger to meet us .
Agenda for the meeting was to know how the hub can support them get buyers and certification. After our meeting they decided to represent AMH in Niamey. Their first meeting is to start on 8 Feb 2020.
They were very excited about AMH and how we are undertaking our core mandate in Africa. They promised to work with us for the interest of MORINGA in Africa. We took them through the website and all relevant information for better understanding. You can see their images below. We can say we have hub volunteers in Niger now.
Moringa Party
Our last night in Ouagadougou was fun! Hub members in Ouagadougou made a party for us and it was full of moringa testimonies. The hospitality was so welcoming.
Thursday 30 January
Meeting Marthe Toe and Dr Philippe Arnold
We took a night bus to travel to Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, to meet Marthe Toe and Dr Philippe Anold.
Moise and I took off at 11:30 pm and arrived at 5:30 am, straight to the hotel to rest.
Then at 10 am we went to meet Dr Philippe Anold, Mamali MORINGA and Martha Toe for a MORINGA breakfast. It was a wonderful experience, getting to know each other in person for the first time after 3 years of online communication.
A brief meeting was held after which we had 2 video interviews.
In the afternoon we proceeded for a workshop with about 30 participants organised by Marthe Toe, our host. Facilitators were Joshua Haruna, Dr Philippe, Sakale Traore (Mamali moringa) was our translator.
Actually Sakale Traore (Mamali moringa) travelled from Màli to meet us and to join the hub as well .
Key discussions area:
- Understanding AMH and theme for 2020;
- Discussion on having a uniform pricing for MORINGA raw products;
- How to know more about moringa equipments;
- Certification;
- Packaging;
- Language (French) use for translation
Marthe Toe encouraged more of the participants to join AMH and she spelt out it’s benefits to members.
We had a memorable dinner, I will never forget.
Friday 31 January
Farm Visit
Mr Christophe Davila, a Facebook follower of AMH, travelled from his city to meet us for a farm visit at Mr Yahaya’s farm. He is into leaf production, after processing he sells himself.
He had 3 farms we visited and we ended up at Marthe Toe home again with a superb dinner. .
Saturday 1 February
The End:
I left Bobo around 3:00 pm to travel back to Ghana. It was a wonderful experience shared, lessons learnt and in Burkina Faso the majority know about the health benefits of moringa and they use it in their daily meals. Participants during the workshop agreed to plant more trees to save life .
Not much of value addition was seen.
Summing up
The People I met
Most of the people I met are people who believe in herbal medicines, that already have knowledge about moringa but want to learn more about moringa value addition.
Members – About 10 hub members were present in general, 6 members in Ouagadougou and 4 in Bobo.
The farmers and producers – We were shown some of their products, varieties of PKM1 seeds.
Marthe Toe took us to her operations room to see her new acquired oil extraction machine from Germany. The machine is able to press 15kg moringa seeds kennel in an hour.
After the workshop, more people declared interest in venturing into value addition and investing in technology for transforming their products. More also expressed joining the hub this month .
Positives:
- Irrigation system use very common in Burkina Faso because no rains for long months.
- Most farms have wire fences to guard against animals eating their Moringa trees.
- Most of the moringa farmers have their own technical advisors.
- They run farming as a business.
- I see a lot of mixed cropping and mixed farming which is not common to most of us.
Challenges:
- Not much rain leading them to use irrigation systems, which is expensive.
- Many cows and goats gazing around farming areas forcing them to fence their farms.
- Certification also an issue.
- Farming seems to be more expensive in BURKINA Faso than other African countries I have visited.
How can people help?
We need more awareness creation, promotions in French language. AMH should consider translation to French in all communications .