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Meeting women who chose organic farming, and have no regrets.
Nare Mamounata didn’t hesitate for long. When organic cotton was introduced in her village, she took the leap. A widow and head of her household, she had something rare for a woman in Burkina Faso: upon her husband’s death, she inherited a plot of land to farm, a situation far from guaranteed for most women in her position. But land alone isn’t enough. Without draft animals of her own, plowing was impossible. She had no choice but to borrow oxen from her neighbors each season to prepare her field, a dependence that made her position precarious, yet never diminished her determination.
At the point of sale, there were no such obstacles. The marketing system organized by the UNPCB guaranteed her direct and equitable access to the market. The result was transformative: she sends her children to school, covers their healthcare costs, and bought a motorcycle so they could reach a school too far to walk to. “I was able to earn a lot of money. It changed our lives.” Everything men do, she says, she can do too.
The National Union of Cotton Producers of Burkina Faso (UNPCB) is the umbrella organization for Cotton Producer Groups (GPC), established in 1996 with the aim of facilitating access to agricultural inputs and equipment, sound credit management, and increased production.
Nabani Djenaba came to the same decision differently. She observed, talked with other women producers, then took the plunge. Her husband owns animals, so plowing was never the problem. The problem came later, when the deteriorating security situation led to his land being confiscated — leaving her without a plot to farm. A harsh blow, and one that reflects a vulnerability many women in the region share: land access is always provisional, always at risk. What carried Nabani through was training. Through the ACP Business Friendly programme’s partnership with the UNPCB, producers, men and women alike receive practical formation in quality management, the use of weighing scales, and traceability documentation. Skills that stay in the communities. “I now know how to grow maize and other crops well,” Djenaba says. “It helped me pay my children’s school fees.”
The cooperatives received equipment too, tools that reduce impurities and improve the quality of what gets delivered to the ginning plant. But what made the difference for Mamounata or Djenaba is simpler: the money that finally reached their hands. The children who now go to school. The sense that they have control over their lives and livelihoods. And this power has them hold firm in spite of the obstacles, borrowed land, the confiscated fields, and the roads too long to walk. They produce, they sell, and they build their future.
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