Growing Nutritious, Accessible, and Resilient Food Systems in Burkina Faso
The processing of locally available, nutrient-rich crops can be a source of economic opportunity for many smallholder producers in Burkina Faso. Implemented by Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA), the Feed the Future-funded USAID Yidgiri Activity supports agroprocessors to overcome institutional, financial, environmental, and market-related barriers so that they can easily and sustainably increase the local supply of safe, nutritious foods. It also partners with producer organizations, processors, and other market actors to help them understand consumer needs and preferences in order to raise nutritional awareness and facilitate increased demand for these foods at the community and household levels.
Since 2022, USAID Yidgiri has trained 236 processors and retailers, including 109 women, on improved manufacturing practices and packaging standards, good hygiene, and enhanced food storage and preservation techniques while helping them to establish strong markets for their products. Training has also focused on strengthening sales techniques, canvassing for new points of sale, and marketing goods to relevant distribution networks to help improve household incomes and enhance the nutritional status of women and children.
To date, USAID Yidgiri’s support to agroprocessors has led to the establishment of 96 new points of sale and the generation of almost $1 million for producers like Awa Clémence Kabore, who sells orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, milk, and other products made from cowpea and small ruminants.
Kabore, an entrepreneur from Kaya who sells flour and chips made from home-grown, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, received training to upgrade her sales and distribution networks after an analysis conducted by USAID Yidgiri identified her business as having the potential to grow. Equipped with new skills and ideas to expand her business, Kabore successfully connected with nearby retail stores, ten of which agreed to stock her products, and in less than four months, was able to triple her monthly income from approximately $335 (200,000 FCFA) to approximately $1,000 (598,800 FCFA).
As Awa Clémence Kabore continues to develop her business, she anticipates that she will have the financial capacity to further diversify her products and establish her own store specializing in the sale of orange-fleshed sweet potato chips.
“USAID Yidgiri lives up to its name [“grow” in the Mòoré language] by helping us grow and open up economic opportunities. The testimonies I receive from customers and food managers continue to encourage me because they reinforce that my products are innovative and of good quality,” Kabore said while looking proudly at her products.
Through trainings conducted to build the capacity of agroprocessors in Burkina Faso, USAID Yidgiri provides opportunities for entrepreneurs and producer organizations to increase their incomes and develop resilient livelihoods. Likewise, CNFA works to strengthen agricultural market systems across the Sahel—especially in the cowpea, poultry, and small ruminant value chains. In 2022, CNFA trained over 6,000 producers, agrodealers, processors, breeders, and traders in Mali to improve their agricultural practices, established more than 300 demonstration plots for agricultural producers in Burkina Faso, and almost doubled the number of Nigerien producer organizations it supported, from 384 in 2020 to 658 in 2022.
